Die Another Day

(Here be spoilers if you are yet to see the James Bond films)



The Mission

007 (Pierce Brosnan) infiltrates an illegal weapons trade in North Korea that involves conflict-diamonds. The mission goes spectacularly wrong though, with Bond spending a year and a half being interrogated in a North Korean cell. Upon his release and escape from a suspicious MI6, he operates on his own to track down the Korean terrorists responsible for the diamond trade-off. His mission leads him to the British entrepeneur Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), who has financed and built a new kind of weapon of mass destruction.



Jimmy Bond Yo!

Bond starts out the film in his typicaly cocky manner, taking some sunglasses off a bad guy'for himself. We're being set up for his fall though, with his North Korean mission ending in incarceration. He accepts his capture with steely resolve and undergoes 18 months of torture and imprisonment at the hands of the North Koreans before finally getting traded back to England. The torture he experiences involves scorpion venom and water-torture but he remains silent and loyal to the UK, prepared to die for his country. On his return to England he gets 'burned' by MI6 as they can't be sure that he didn't break under interrogation... this prompts Bond to go rogue (yet again). He's annoyed by M's lack of fidelity but is still loyal, he speaks of a spy honour code and is against making deals.



Medical examination reveals that his liver is in pretty poor condition (evidence of his hard-drinking lifestyle). He's able to break out of an American military hospital fairly casually by stopping his heart rate through meditation. His time in the North Korean prison doesn't really seem to have affected him mentally or emotionally. He seems sad about Miranda Frost's death, a scene that echoes his killing of Electra in The World is Not Enough. It could be interpreted that this sadness is more about aesthetics and disappointment regarding wasted beauty. We actually see Bond load and stash his gun under his pillow before getting down to business... it's something that's been alluded to in past films, but here we actually see it.



Bond can surf, knows CPR, and can swordfight with the best of them. Surprisingly, he's also able to give himself a decent haircut - after emerging from his capture bedraggled, bearded and long-haired he's able to groom himself rather quickly in a Hong Kong hotel. We see him in army camoflage towards the end of the film, and the North Koreans known him by reputation as a 'British assassin'.





Villainy

The lead villain in Die Another Day is Gustav Graves, a Richard Branson-esque adventuring playboy who enjoys fencing and parachuting and things like that. He builds an artificial sun called 'Icarus', a satellite that also doubles as a WMD that shoots a massive heat ray. Graves also has an old school supervillain's lair (an ice palace in Iceland) in true over-the-top 60s/70s Bond style. In reality Graves is the rogue Korean colonel we see Bond square up against in the film's prologue... he's disguised himself as an anglo-saxon by undergoing radical DNA treatment in Cuba, the side effect of which is an inability to sleep. Graves also has a Virtual Reality suit that allows him to control Icarus, and gloves that release up to 100 volts of electricity. He's smarmy and ultra-confident, kind of like a short version of Richard E. Grant, though the character claims to have modelled his persona on Bond.



His brother in arms is the Korean terrorist Zao (Rick Yune), wanted by pretty much every major political power in the world. Zao has weird facial scarring due to a C4 explosion engineered by Bond in the film's prologue, and later looks ever stranger after Bond interrupts the DNA transformation process (leaving Zao with one blue eye and pale skin).



Zao and Graves are also assisted by Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), another Koean who underwent the DNA transformation to look British. She works as a publicist for Gustav Graves but has also infiltrated MI6 as an employee. MI6 think her job with Graves is an assignment for them but she's really a double-agent (don't think about it too much, the more you think about it the less it makes sense). She maintains a professional and icy facade (hence the name, geddit?), and doesn't fraternise with other agents. This just makes her more desirable to Bond (which is also probably part of her plan).



The three of them represent a cell of North Koreans corrupted by Western decadence, and they're assisted by a couple of colourful henchmen - including a comedy Russian scientist named Vladamir Popov (Mikhail Gorevoy) and a cheeky Maori muscleman named Mr. Kil (Lawrence Makoare).



Buddies and Babes

M (Judi Dench) is gentle with Bond upon his return from North Korea. She trusts him but American pressure means she can't welcome him back into MI6, and she's forced to suspend him instead. The main Bond girl for Die Another Day is Jinx (Halle Berry) - a NSA agent who's pretty much an American female version of Bond; a cocky and highly capable lone wolf. Berry is quite awful in the role but it's written very self-consciously so it's not all her fault.



Bond is also helped by Mr. Chang (Ho Yi), a Chinese hotel owner who knows Bond quite well an dtreats him like his best customer. In reality, Chang is a Chinese agent, and he helps Bond due to the fact that they have a mutual enemy in the Korean terrorist Zao.



Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) is still her smirking self but starting to look older. She finally gets to kiss Bond but the moment is revealed to be a virtual reality simulation of her own making (more on this in How Does It Rate below). R (John Cleese) also appears again, fulfilling the role that Q used to fill (and now referred to as 'Q'). He seems more like a straight Q-substitute in terms of characterisation (as opposed to the bumbling figure we saw in the previous film, The World is Not Enough).



Colin Salmon appears again as Charles Robinson, M's MI6 attache, but it's a fairly bland character (he features in all of the Brosnan Bond films except GoldenEye, but you'd barely notice it). Michael Madsen also shows up as M's NSA equivalent, Damian Falco, and comes across as a stereotypically brash American.



Locations

The film opens in North Korea and returns there for the climax, spending the bulk of the time inbetween in Cuba and Iceland. The Cuba sequences are filmed on location in Havana and look great - making this the first time a Bond film has been filmed there desite it being the third Bond film set there. The Iceland sequences (also on location) may as well be filmed anywhere that's cold and icy, we don't really see any of Iceland beyond some icy plains and mountains. There's also some short but effective scenes set in Hong Kong and London.



Gadgets and Tricks of the Trade

Die Another Day takes Bond's penchant for gadgets to ridiculous heights. His surfboard comes with weapons concealed within a secret compartment, and his watch can be used to activate specially-prepared C4. He also has a special ring that can sonically shatter glass, and the new Q gives him his most advanced car yet - armed with automatic guns, tires that are able to grip on ice, and a cloaking device that gives the impression of invisibility. Bond also parachutes into Korea using a 'switchblade', a man-sized capsule used for high altitude jumps, and is able to quickly fashion a parasail out of debris from Graves' rocket car.





Licence to Kill

Bond kills one or two Korean soldiers with a C4 explosion during the prologue, and kills at least 10 more men during a hovercraft chase. He also crushes Zao with an ice chandelier, and later shoots a hole in a high-flying plane - causing at least two to four men to get sucked out. Finally, he electrocutes Graves and prematurely pulls his parachute cord, causing the playboy to get sucked into a plane engine.



Shag-Rate

Bond and Jonx get busy almost immediately after meeting and it's a more explicit sex scene than usual. It's actually the first time we ever see an actual sex scene in a Bond film, though it makes some narrative sense as it represents Bond's first shag after 18 months of imprisonment (!) Miranda Frost gives in to Bond's charms in Iceland, and 007 and Jinx get together again at the end in a Korean hut with a bed full of diamonds.



Quotes

JAMES BOND (after handing over some C4 disguised as diamonds): Don't blow it all at once.



DAMIAN FALCO: Look at him, you'd think he was some kind of hero.



RAUL: One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.



JAMES BOND: I'm just here for the birds. Ornithologist.



CHANG (speaking for China): Hong Kong's our turf now, Bond.

JAMES BOND: Yeah, well, don't worry about it - I'm not here to take it back.



M: Knowing who to trust is everything in this business.



GRAVES: Are you a gambling man, Mr. Bond?

BOND: If the stakes are right.



MIRANDA FROST (after giving in and kissing Bond): M warned me this would happen.

JAMES BOND: Oh, so that's why you tried so hard not to be interested in me.

MIRANDA FROST: Oh god, you're even worse than your file says!



M: While you were away the world changed.

JAMES BOND: Not for me.



JAMES BOND: You're cleverer than you look.

Q: Well, better than looking cleverer than you are.



MIRANDA FROST: I take it Bond's been explaining his big bang theory?

JINX: Oh, I think I got the thrust of it.



How Does It Rate?

Die Another Day starts out perhaps more strongly than any other Bond film, breaking the formula to do something big with the character and featuring one of the best title sequences seen in the series. Predictably, they don't really follow this up in any interesting way, Die Another Day quickly becomes all style over substance - CGI-heavy, full of dodgy bluescreen, and tech-fetishistic. Director Lee Tamahori delivers a film so highly stylised that it sucks a lot of the charm out of the franchise - it looks great, slick but gritty in a 21st century way, but the overuse of slow motion, fast motion and snap editing just makes it look like a hyperactive car advertisement or an MTV music video.



This film was actually released on the 40th anniversary of the first James Bond film, so there are lots of scenes that pay 'homage' to older Bond films - visual references to Thunderball and a cool sequence that has Bond and Graves engaging in a friendly swordfight that escalates way out of control (echoiing the Venetian brawl in Moonraker). When these are the highlights of your film though then you're in trouble... a lot of Die Another Day is all over the place, there's just too much going on and too much emphasis is placed on flashy spectacle over decent plotting.



The first act promises a new 21st Century look at spydom - a nihilistic world of conflict diamonds, cynical espionage organisations, and terrorism. There's mention made by a Korean character that Britain wrongfully thinks that it can police the world, bu tthe rest of the film doesn't have the guts to deal with these deeper themes of foreign policy and perspective. This could've been a way to single the James Bond films out against contemporary spy thrillers - this idea of Bond as an old-fashioned hero with unquestioning loyalty to his government in an era of terrorism and dissent. Instead the constant references to Zao as a 'terrorist' never go beyind using the word 'terrorism' as a meaningless label... what sort of terrorist is he? Why is he a terrorist?



It also doesn't help Die Another Day's case that Halle Berry grates on the nerves as an unoriginal character with some awful lines. They even do that cliche where the 'good' female and the 'bad' female face off against other while their male counterparts do the same. Actually, it's embarrassing how poorly this film deals with female characters in general... the character of Moneypenny has gone from a strong, independent woman in GoldenEye to this pathetic loser who's now good for just a couple of cheap gags about female desperation. Anyway, it's just a misjudged film - too visually over the top and without any thematic depth despite some good ideas behind the attention-grabbing introduction.



Visit my James Bond page.



DIRECTOR: Lee Tamahori

WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, based on character created by Ian Fleming.

KEY ACTORS: Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike, Rick Yune, John Cleese, Judi Dench, Samantha Bond, Colin Salmon, Michael Madsen, Madonna, Will Yun Lee, Kenneth Tsang



RELATED TEXTS:

- Die Another Day makes reference to just about every James Bond film.

- The other two James Bond films partially set in Cuba are Octopussy and GoldenEye.

- For a more serious film about conflict-diamonds, see Blood Diamond.



AWARDS

Golden Globes - nominated Best Original Song (Die Another Day)