That is nitpicking to the extreme (which is why I love this place).
All incredibly pedantic to be ruled out (and I love it haha, you are technically correct). I had counted all those.
Oh no, I’m caught up!
It’s not ridiculous at all. A boat is the best vehicle to have sex in.
I think a lot of it was they tried to make The Saint’s Simon Templar into 007’s James Bond and it didn’t work.
And it’s just like American beer…
Moonraker demonstrates otherwise.
Sure, for a while, but sooner or later you have to, umm… brace for reentry.
Die Another Day (2002)
I wasn’t sold on Pierce Brosnan at the outset, and now I’m sorry to see him go. I really quite enjoyed this one.
It starts out quite gritty, with Bond having been held prisoner in North Korea for over a year, then going rogue for revenge, ala Licence To Kill. The difference being that MI6 takes him back into the fold to complete the mission. What follows is quite ridiculous—but it’s very fun, escapist ridiculousness, which is exactly what the world needed in 2002.
M: “While you were away, the world changed.”
Bond: “Not for me.”
A quick acknowledgment that 9/11 happened, and then permission to forget about it for the next couple hours. Nicely done.
This is much less of a by-the-numbers Bond than The World Is Not Enough. Again, there’s lots of ridiculousness, but it can be forgiven – even embraced – because you never know what’s coming next. Plenty of action, plenty of unsurvivable situations that (spoiler alert!) Bond survives, all packaged into a really fun ride. I loved the hovercraft chase; I loved Bond’s ridiculous escape from the calving glacier; I loved when James found the jetpack from Thunderball and quipped “Does this thing still work?”
And then there’s Jinx. Ah, Jinx. In an alternate universe somewhere, Halle Berry and I… but I digress. Let’s just say I like Halle Berry. And she’s a big reason why I like this film so much. Jinx, unlike many previous “Bond Girls,” was a complete, well-written character, and Berry plays the hell out of it while looking fantastic doing so. Did I mention I like Halle Berry?
Lots of good supporting cast. Rosamund Pike, whom I’ve found somewhat off-putting in other roles, is very good here as the double agent Miranda Frost. I could have gotten fully on board with John Cleese as the new Q, if only he’d stuck around. Michael Madsen was perfectly Michael Madsen-ish. Samantha Bond might be my favorite Moneypenny ever. Rick Yune as Zao is an adequately menacing #2 bad guy. And Judi Dench continues to elevate the role of M above every M that has come before.
The Big Bad, Toby Stephens, was a bit bland. But I’ll forgive that because it’s part of the character’s cover. If we can buy the invisible car, surfing into North Korea, the melting ice palace, and starting a helicopter while it’s in freefall, we can buy a North Korean transforming into a Caucasian via some underground DNA therapy. When a movie’s this fun, you just gotta go with it.
Next up: Casino Royale
The good one … or the one with Daniel Craig? (Yes, I’m that one guy.)
As much as I agreed about The World is not Enough, I’ll have to disagree here haha. DAD is the absolute bottom of the barrel, the nadir, the lowest point of the series. Too many eye-rollingly cheesy one-liners, an excess of slow-mo, terrible CGI (not just the bit everyone knows). I will give it credit where it’s due though, up until Bond somehow stops his own heart through sheer willpower, it’s actually all rather fun and well done. Then it goes downhill rapidly. Such a shame for Brosnan to sign off with this stinker. But this is the beauty of opinions and I am glad some people love this, honestly! Thankfully it didn’t kill the series off for good and we got a superb entry with Craig’s debut.
I think it’s interesting that this is the second Bond film in which the villain uses illicitly-acquired diamonds to build a space laser. Don’t those bad guys learn?
Well, diamond space lasers are forever, after all.
It’s the film’s bad luck that it came out a year after 24 premiered and a few months after Bourne Identity was released, making it essentially obsolete.
Also - absolute worst Bond theme ever. Seriously, Madonna’s overproduced noise is just awful.
I do; I do just have to go with that; IMHO, Toby Stephens actually manages to sell it, if you’re in the right mood or frame of mind or whatever. IMHO, though, he doesn’t manage to sell the comic-book supervillain costume at the big climax, such that I don’t gotta go with that.
I’m glad you liked Die Another Day, because I’ve always had a soft spot for it. It is probably the stupidest Bond movie out there, rivalling Moonraker for the crown. But it’s still fun. Jinx is a big part of that.
Yeah, you really have to let a lot go to enjoy it. It’s from a completely different world from 24 and Bourne Identity. People who consider this the worst Bond movie are absolutely correct from that perspective.
Hated this one. I thought Halle Berry had zero chemistry with Pierce Brosnan, every line they spoke to one another sounded completely wooden, and that totally ruined it for me
I’ll put in some aspects that I did enjoy, though: the sword fight at the fencing club. The fact that it was not obvious (to me, at least) that the main villain was the North Korean guy from the opening scene, a nice twist.
That’s pretty much it. For me, this is the worst one since Moonraker, and I probably enjoyed Moonraker more as a movie, I mainly hate it because it was such a blatant pander to the popularity of Star Wars.
Indeed. It’s as if, in the face of the popularity of those (not to mention Mission: Impossible), they were going out of their way to not be like them - for now, anyway. Watching it 20 years later, though, one is less likely to compare it to other films and shows of the time.
And while I don’t disagree that there was a lot of stupid here, I was very much willing to let it all go and enjoy the ride. TWINE felt stale to me, and DAD injected the fun factor back in. In this way, you might say the stupidity is a feature, not a bug.
I like how it escalated from elegant rapiers to flashing katanas to LONGSWORD SMASH!