Die Another Day (2002) Review

James Bond is sent to investigate in North Korea which does not begin well for him as he is captured and kept as a prisoner . . . After he casually surfed into the country. Yes. Really.

The first time we get to see James Bond with long hair? Ok already I am trying to think of some positives to mention about this truly awful film. Well that didn’t last very long trying to be nice about it as let’s face it this is not going to be a very nice review. Although I must say that since going through the Bond films as part of the Bondathon I have been warned well since starting that this film is a bad one. Thanks to my lovely Twitter/Blogger friends. I was even told to not bother watching all of the film . . .

Well I managed to persist with it which believe me was not an easy task, the only thing that this film has made easy is where it the ranks in the 24. A post about that will be up in a few days I promise. Anyway I don’t even know where to start with the plot as it was pretty crazy from the start with a lot of crazy characters.

I like that Bond has always had cheeky little lines that relate to sex and they never overdid it. Quite often the last line and would make you smile wondering if anyone didn’t quite get it. This film went and spoilt all of that hard work, as every fifteen minutes (guesstimate) we had a sex reference. We even had a couple of doubles, which really wasn’t needed that just makes me think that the writers had actually ran out of good things for the characters to say so resorted to trying to get some laughs instead.

John Cleese has now taken over as Q and the gadgets take its silliest turn yet. Honestly you have to see it to believe it (pun intended) as they reveal the car turns invisible to the naked eye. Yes 007 now has an invisible car, so he has such a cool supercar and they decide to make it invisible? Well I guess that isn’t the biggest problem with the idea of this. Unfortunately an invisible car isn’t the worst thing about this film, which is saying a lot.

As well as doing the theme song (wrong in itself) Madonna also had a small role in the film, I really could not believe that at all. It began a truly awful fighting scene in a fencing club, again I am being totally serious. I am now going to stop mentioning things that happened in the film as if you have no seen it you will think I am making it all up. I wish I was making some of this up.

Halle Berry was truly awful, honestly I have never seen her put in a good performance (haven’t seen Monsters Ball so please forgive me) this was even worse than Catwoman. Ok I might just be getting carried away now. I also had no clue Rosamund Pike existed before the last few years, surely her role in this film hurt her career for a little while. Nice to see her doing well now though. I am also now shocked that Brosnan actually had the nerve to bad mouth Spectre. Someone should make him watch this rubbish again!