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Die Another Day Review By Shawn McKenzie 11/25/2002 You may not believe this, but I have never seen a James Bond movie in the theater before now! I’m glad my first experience to Bond in the theater was Die Another Day.
This time around, British secret James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) has been sent on a mission to North Korea to assassinate renegade military leader Colonel Moon (Will Yun Lee.) The plan goes all wrong and Moon is apparently killed while his second-in-charge, Zao (Rick Yune), is injured (with diamonds that were in the case lined with explosives that Bond had brought him) and Bond is imprisoned. After 14 months of torture and interrogation, he is released in exchange for Zao (who had been captured), but finds out that his own government and boss, M (Judi Dench), think he is no longer useful. Since she has these feelings, she takes away his spy status. This only makes Bond more determined to get revenge on those who set him up, plus regain his spy credibility. After escaping the hospital that the government is keeping him in, he follows a lead and goes to Cuba where he meets Raoul (Emilio Echevarria) and learns of an undercover operation involving DNA transplants to give people new identities. He also meets a very hot woman who calls herself Jinx (Halle Berry.) It isn’t long before Bond and Jinx are rolling around in the hay. What Bond doesn’t know is that Jinx is an American spy working to take down the undercover operation. After another run-in with Zao leads to more clues, Bond heads for London to meet businessman Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) whose business is diamonds, some of which were the diamonds that had injured Zao. Graves invites Bond to his place in Iceland (which looks like the building in the “Justice League of America” cartoon), following an extreme fencing competition with Bond that impresses him. With the help of publicist Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike) and inventor Vlad (Michael Gorevoy), Graves is preparing to show off an invention named Icarus, an orbiting satellite that can supply a lot of light and energy wherever it's directed on the Earth. Before heading to Iceland, Bond is once again supplied with assorted high-tech gadgets invented by Q (John Cleese), like a ring that shatters glass and an Astin Martin car that can turn invisible. Bond must deal with various bad guys like Zao and Mr. Kil (Lawrence Makoare) as he tries to figure out how Graves his involved in the plot and must then stop the villains from carrying out their evil plan.
I’ve always thought Brosnan was the best Bond since Sean Connery. I’ve liked all of the Brosnan Bond movies (except The World is Not Enough, but that was the fault of Denise Richards, not Brosnan), and I was looking forward to this one. I was not disappointed. This was the twentieth Bond movie, and in honor of the occasion, there were visual or spoken references to each of the previous 19 Bond films (like the bathing suit Jinx wears from Dr. No, Graves mentioning that Diamonds are Forever during the fencing scene, etc.) I believe the style of the movie was in honor to the Bond legacy too. The suit, the ease that Bond gets a woman in bed, the predictable deception (invented by Bond movies), the lasers, etc. This is just a fun movie with everything you’d want in a Bond movie. Plus Berry looks good throughout!
Die Another Day is definitely my favorite Brosnan Bond movie to date. The combination of the entertaining time at the movie and the nice sights of Berry make this a must-see for hardcore and casual Bond fans alike. This may be the first Bond movie I have seen in the theater, but if they bring back Brosnan (or a decent new guy) for the 21st movie, I’ll be back!
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