Mario’s Musings (Quarantine Edition): Die Another Day
"We only met briefly, but you left a lasting impression. You see, when your intervention forced me to present the world with a new face, I chose to model the disgusting Gustav Graves on you. Oh, just in the details; that unjustifiable swagger, the crass quips, the self-defense mechanism concealing such inadequacy..."
In 2002, Pierce Brosnan starred as James Bond for the final time in Die Another Day, facing off against a rogue North Korean Colonel who wants to unite the Korean Peninsula under North Korean rule. Hm, that doesn’t sound TOO ridiculous.
You’d be surprised, because like A View to a Kill, this one is considered to be one of the worst Bond movies of all time, despite its financial success at the box office. Based on Rotten Tomatoes it’s ranked #20 (out of 24 Bond films not including Never Say Never Again and the original Casino Royale), and on Metacritic it’s ranked at #18.
Like A View to a Kill before it, I love this movie for all the wrong reasons, but not as much as I loved A View to a Kill. I love this movie because of how random it is. Let’s look at the casting for starters; Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike (yes, from Gone Girl and Pride & Prejudice) are the Bond ladies, John Cleese of Monty Python fame is Q, and Michael Madsen plays NSA Chief Damian Falco. Then you’ve got the plot, where Sir Gustav Graves (played by Toby Stephens), who rises to prominence, while Bond is being held captive in North Korea, by discovering diamonds in a mine in Iceland.
Graves develops the Icarus Satellite, which can channel direct sunlight and beam it anywhere in the world. Where does Gustav Graves want to beam the Icarus? Well, none other than at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, so that the North Korean Army can invade the South and unite Korea under one banner. But why would a European like Graves care about North Korea? Well, that’s part of the beauty of this ridiculous movie, as Graves is formerly Colonel Tan-Sun Moon, who Bond was thought to have killed a year prior, which led to his arrest in North Korea. Moon survived and then used gene therapy to change his appearance into Sir Gustav Graves.
From this…
…to this. Quite the transformation.
Like I said, it’s completely ridiculous, but it’s such a fun movie at the same time. You have Toby Stephens completely hamming it up as Graves, which the quote at the top of the article explains perfectly in regards to the character, playing it as a complete mockery of Bond. You have to give him major props for also learning some Korean for when he talks to the other Korean characters in the movie. Graves might be one of my favorite villains, once again, for all the wrong reasons.
Off the charts chemistry right here.
Then there’s the chemistry between Brosnan’s Bond and Halle Berry’s Jinx, which is off the charts, to the point where I needed a cigarette after some of their interactions:
Miranda Frost: Mr. Bond. And Miss...?
Jinx: Swift, "Space and Technology" magazine.
Miranda Frost: Really? I take it Mr. Bond's been explaining his Big Bang theory?
Jinx: Oh yeah, I think I got the thrust of it.
Okay, that one didn’t include Bond, but he was standing there, so it counts. That’s one cigarette, and here’s another:
Jinx: Sorry I left you in an explosive situation. You're a big boy. I figured you could handle it yourself.
James Bond: No wonder your relationships don't last.
Jinx: I'm a girl that just doesn't like to get tied down.
Inhale. Exhale.
Look kids, it’s Madonna!
One part of this movie that REALLY fails is the theme song, sung by Madonna. “Die Another Day” might be one of the WORST theme songs to ever accompany a Bond movie. Even worse, Madonna herself makes a cameo and has lines in what is completely a “hey look, it’s Madonna!” moment. The opening credits show Bond being tortured by North Koreans while the viewing audience has their eardrums tortured by Madonna’s awful song.
Even WORSE than that, it’s a song I constantly hear on the grocery store soundtrack whenever I go food shopping.
Mar’s Note: I like Madonna a lot, I just really hate this song.
We can improve the opening credits of this movie with a better song, let’s try Goldfinger as sung by Frasier, Niles, and Martin?
Ah, that’s better.
All in all, this is a wild movie for the plot, villain, and the chemistry between Brosnan and Berry, but not the type of Bond movie you wanted after 9/11, when the world was a completely different place. You’d think you’d get a movie that would touch on some of the things that people were now dealing with. But instead, it was the 20th Bond movie so they try an anniversary approach by referencing the older films. The next movie, Casino Royale, which ended up rebooting the franchise to when Bond first becomes a 00 agent focused more on the new world that followed 9/11.