Number on Countdown: 20

Title: Die Another Day

Year: 2002

Synopsis: Agent 007 is back, and this time, we start off in North Korea. Bond, with the help of a couple other dudes, abducts a Mr. Van Bierk, who is on his way to trade conflict diamonds with Colonel Sun-Tan Moon, who is trading them for weapons. Bond arrives at the base, meeting Moon’s buddy, Zao, who takes a secret photo of him and sends it off to some secret person. Moon meets Bond (as Mr. Van Bierk) and they trade the diamonds for weapons. Zao receives a message back on the photo and is informed by some contact that Van Bierk is actually James Bond, a British assassin.

Zao notifies Moon, and Moon demonstrates his new tank buster on Bond’s helicopter, then saying “How do you expect to kill me now, Mr. Bond?” Bond is like “Ahh shiii, he knows who I am!” (exact dialogue, no doubt) In a jam, Bond triggers some C4, sending the whole base into array. Moon gets off on one of his hovercrafts, but Bond gives chase, and after a thrilling pursuit, Bond sends the Moon over a waterfall. Moon is dead, but Bond finds himself cornered by North Korean dudes led by General Moon, Colonel Moon’s father.

Fourteen months later, Bond is bearded and torture-fatigued. General Moon wants to know who his son’s Western ally was (which comes out of nowhere, kind of), but Bond doesn’t know who it is, stating it was the same person who betrayed him (which kind of comes out of nowhere, too). Bond is then traded for Zao, who had recently been captured by the good guys for blowing up Chinese stuff.

M comes to see Bond soon after and is not happy to see him, because trading Zao for him was too high a price. Bond’s 00-status is rescinded and he’s all bummed out. He wonders who Moon’s contact is, the person who betrayed him, and escapes from his holding cell, swimming off to a nearby city (Hong Kong) and gets a hotel room. Now that he’s shaved and has some clothes, he asked Mr. Chang of Chinese Intelligence to help him locate Zao.

Bond goes to Havana, Cuba, where Zao is rumored to be, and while smokin’ some cigars, Bond meets NSA Agent Giacinta Johnson, otherwise known as “Jinx”. They chat a bit and then get it on. Bond’s investigations lead him to a sketchy clinic that specializes in DNA therapy, the changing of one’s DNA to look completely different. Bond finds Zao in a hospital room, looking weirder that he did last time, for he’s halfway through the DNA therapy. Bond tries to ask him some questions, but Zao manages to escape, but not before leaving behind a necklace pendant full of diamonds. Diamonds with the symbol of Gustav Graves, a young British dude, on it.

Bond tracks down Graves at Blades Club, some high-class gentlemen’s club (a place I’d never gain admittance), and they get into an aggressive fencing match that ends with some bloody lips. After the fight, Bond meets with M, who trusts him again, and they discuss shit. Graves is some nobody who, in the past year or so, has found a huge diamond find in Iceland. Bond and her agree he should go investigate this young dude. He then goes to meet Q’s successor to get all his gagdets, including an invisible car known as “The Vanish”.

At Grave’s ice palace in Iceland, Bond sees Jinx. In a scene where Bond isn’t, we see the fucked-up Zao and Gustav Graves speaking Korean. The British Gustav Graves is really the North Korean Colonel Moon, who has completed the gene therapy process. (On snap. . .) In a big demonstration, Graves shows off his diamond-encrusted satellite, Icarus, which could be used to grow crops year-round end world hunger. Bond tries to do some investigating, but sets off an alarm. While casually leaving the scene, he is nabbed by fellow MI6 agent Miranda Frost and they sleep together.

Bond sneaks into Graves’ green-house ice palace the next day and finds Jinx has been caught by some baddies and is about to get her head chopped off by a laser. Bond frees her and soon figures out that Gustav Graves must be Colonel Moon. He soon confronts Graves and calls him out. Moon, seeing no reason to hide it anymore, confesses and says he based the “disgusting” Gustav Graves on Bond himself. Miranda comes over to help apprehend Moon, but she’s a biotch and points the gun at Bond instead. Turns out she was the one who betrayed him in Korea. (Aww daaang!)

Bond escapes in Graves’ super-fast car thing, but Graves has Icarus send down a sun-beam from space to destroy it. After a chase and shit, Graves believes he has killed Bond and leaves his ice palace. Bond arrives at ice palace, tryin’ to find Jinx and gets in his invisible car. He is soon discovered and Zao chases him in his green-ass car. Graves starts melting his ice palace with Icarus. Bond rushes into the palace with the Vanish and saves her, but Zao is not so lucky to leave alive.

Bond and Jinx head to U.S. Command Bunker in the DMZ and chat with M, Robinson, and this annoying American meathead. In order to stop Graves, Bond and Jinx follow him to a North Korean airbase to snipe him. He gets aboard a plane before they get off the shot, so they jump aboard right before it takes off.

On board, Graves/Moon confronts his father, revealing to him that he’s his post-DNA-therapy son. General Moon is disappointed that his son has changed himself and is a power-hungry mofo. Graves ends up killing his defiant father. Bond intervenes, shooting out a window of the plane, sending papers (and people) out the window. Jinx steadies the plane, but Miranda Frost is there to challenge her with sword. Jinx and Bond have their respective fights. In the end, Miranda and Graves meet their deserving ends. Icarus is disabled and the day is saved. Bond and Jinx escape the crashing plane and then do it in some hut by the ocean, because that’s what you do after saving the world.

Things I like:

Despite Die Another Day being far from my favorite, there are some things I don’t mind too much. For example, the pre-credits sequence is pretty darn awesome. Seriously, there isn’t anything in this scene that isn’t awesome. Like Colonel Moon giving hell to his punching bag, only for us to discover it had his anger therapist zipped up in it. Genius! Colonel Moon’s disdain for Western “hypocrisy”. Awesome. The gray, bleak colorization of everything. Moody! The hovercraft chase and fight. Really stunning stuff!

Additionally, Rosamund Pike is absolutely gorgeous as Gustav Graves’ right-hand woman.

Other than that, though. . .

Things I didn’t like:

When watching this movie again for the review, I couldn’t help but shake my head on average like every two minutes. This might be why so many consider Die Another Day to be Brosnan’s worst Bond film and shed light on why it was his last (I personally think he had one more in him). So what do I find the biggest problems of Die Another Day are?

Well, as with Moonraker, I feel like Day Another Day went too far in the direction of science fiction. The entire plot revolves around a presumed-dead Colonel changing his DNA to keep on being a bad guy. Sounds like something right out of a Phillip K. Dick short story. In the director commentary, director Lee Tamahori said: “I mean, it’s unbelievable. I remember looking at the script and going ‘you don’t really expect me to believe this, do you?'” While his reminiscence might have been endearing, we can’t deny that this is one of the most outlandish plots in the entire Bond series (and that’s saying a lot). Not to mention that Gustav Graves’ space-suit looks like something out of some crappy summer comic book movie.

Maybe it’s not all Halle Berry’s fault, but Jinx just rubs me the wrong way. I have nothing against Halle Berry, but in her role as a Bond-equal NSA agent, she just comes off as trying too hard. Bond’s cool because he IS cool, and I think if they ever succeed in making a Bond-girl equivalent, she would just BE cool as well. She wouldn’t do something awesome and then qausi-wink to the camera the way Jinx did, y’know what I mean? She would just have it and she would know it. And really, when Zao asks who sent her, she says “Yo mama”. . .really?

Also, Graves’ scientist henchman always annoyed me because he looks just like Prince Valium from Spaceballs. I mean…look at him.

Die Another Day might have strayed too far into science fiction, but it also strayed in terms of traditional filming. Bond movies are known for their amazing stunts which are all done for real. Stunt-men jumping out of airplanes, skiing off cliffs, flying boats over a street. . . it’s all so damn thrilling. But Die Another Day went the CGI route, and it, well, sucks. Not to mention that Die Another Day features some annoying quick camera sweeps and slow motion shots featured in then-popular films like XXX, The Fast and the Furious, and The Matrix.

One unfortunate thing about the film is that we don’t get to see much of Will Yun Lee’s performance of Colonel Moon, which is absolutely stellar in the opening sequence. Toby Stephens is good as Gustav Graves, I guess, but I really think Lee could have carried the whole film. Not really a complaint, but oh well.

The Song:

For the twentieth Bond adventure, the Bond producers chose Madonna for the title track. Makes sense. She’s MADONNA, after all. Sadly, from the woman who has given us so many hits, we get the single WORST Bond song of all time. Seriously, this is the absolute worst. Like, by far.

I understand that not all Bond songs can be a Shirely Bassey-type song to sing in a nightclub, and I commend Madonna for experimenting, but HOLY SHIT. The fact that her voice is altered seems to go against everything that all the previous divas had done before her (y’know…singing).

For the first time during the title sequence, we continue with the story of Bond, seeing him tortured by the Koreans. And what song goes better with torture than a shitty dance track? I mean seriously, does this fit the tone of the story AT ALL? Daniel Kleinman, the titles director for Die Another Day had this to say: “The images and the music were quite difficult to reconcile, in my mind. So if I had a decision about what music track would have gone with a sequence of Bond being tortured, I probably wouldn’t have chosen that particular song.” Duh!

Worst Bond song ever.

Favorite Scene:

Bond movies usually have so many great action scenes to choose from, but I’d have to say my favorite scene from Die Another Day is actually Bond’s briefing with John Cleese’s Q. The Q scenes are some of my favorite scenes in Bond movies, due to their witty, quick banter, entendres and subtext. I absolutely love them.

And since this movie came out with the 40th year anniversary of the Bond series, Q’s lab is fit with, as Bond says “all the old relics” (perhaps alluding to Q himself). In one room, we have props from Octopussy, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, and various other movies. Also, Q mentions that Bond’s new watch would be his twentieth, in reference to the fact this is the twentieth Bond movie. Love it. If only Bond would see about returning some of that equipment.

Here’s the scene, check it out if interested:

Favorite Line:

After showing Bond a handy device:

Bond: Y’know, you’re cleverer than you look.
Q: Hmm, still, better than looking cleverer than you are. Follow me, please.

Extra Tidbit: Lawrence Makoare, who plays the henchman Mr. Kil, is a Kiwi actor who starred in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, playing Lurtz, The Witch-King of Angmar, and Gothmog.

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