Every James Bond movie is the series nadir. Even the “good” ones – Skyfall, Casino Royale, Dr. No – have massive problems. The last 45 minutes of Casino Royale constitutes an exercise in gratuitous plot twists and extraneous fight scenes. Watching it proves the theory of time dilation. That’s standard for the Bond universe, however. No one in the production machine that makes up the Bond films has ever thought, “this might be too much.” The shortest of the films, Quantum of Solace, is still 106 minutes long. Most are right around 2 hours long. This length, especially for a series of films not exactly known for being overly concerned with plausibility, means that the writers tack on as much as they can, to the point of making the plot of many Bond films completely illegible. As much as Bond films can often seem stuck in the past, their length is one way they’ve pre-saged the modern Marvel Empire. Kevin Feige (editor’s note: I originally confused Paul Feig and Kevin Feige. Thanks to Will Bloom for pointing out that I am an idiot) seems to have watched every Bond movie and told his screenwriters to “make yours longer.”
But length alone does not make Bond movies modern. The recent Daniel Craig-era Bond movies have at least made gestures toward modern movie making – shaky-cam, gritty reboots, etc – but it only seems so revelatory because of the state of the franchise pre-Craig. If you’ve forgotten, or never watched any pre-Craig Bond movies, let me assure you, don’t bother watching them again! 20 Bond movies got made before Craig started as Bond. The 20th of these, Die Another Day, best sums up the ills of the pre-Craig franchise. Let’s take a look at it.
Die Another Day, the 20th Bond film, came out on the 40th anniversary of the series. For people who cared about it, this was a massive event. The producers, realizing this, stuffed the movie full of references to the rest of the series, apparently making at least one reference to every other film. In spite of, or more likely because of the fan service, this film sucks shit. That’s not an interesting claim, however. Plenty of bad films exist. Die Another Day’s specific shittinessprovides the grist for the content mill. While Die Another Day certainly holds the title of being the worst in the series, it is also the platonic ideal of what people think a Bond movie should look like. The dialogue, the plotting, the big set pieces, they all encapsulate what Bond movies aspire to, and yet they fail to do anything remotely interesting or good.
Take the quips for example. Nothing encapsulates the Bond universes’ idea of cool more than when he delivers a pithy line after a death-defying stunt or killing a bad guy. Similarly, a femme fatales who does not deliver some sort of snappy sexual innuendo in Bond’s presence can hardly claim that title, can she? While only absolute freaks think this sort of proto-Joss Whedon levels of human interaction constitutes “cool,” Bond movies usually could pull off this particular type of writing well. Die Another Day does not. It certainly wants to. Every other line in this interminably long movie is some sort of innuendo. It’s like a Friends episode on speed. And honestly? The actors do their best to make it work. Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry at least try to work with this material. But I mean just watch this scene. Jesus. “Quite a mouthful?” Kill me. Nothing less clever or sexy or cool has ever been uttered. Honestly, if the line had been “Ornithologist? I’m looking for a hornythologist” it would have been funny at least.
Plotting is another where Die Another Day outshines itself. Bond movies, while not known for “good” plotting, at least have a lot of it. Die Another Day certainly continues this trend. Bond’s mission revolves around trying to stop a diamond magnate from harnessing the power of the sun. Said magnate doesn’t show up until at least an hour into the movie. This isn’t a particularly fair critique however. The diamond magnate is actually the son of a North Korean General who has undergone “DNA replacement.” This particular medical procedure, preformed only in the dungeon of a small castle in Cuba, has left his memory intact, but made him unrecognizable, due to his DNA literally being switched for that of someone else. The movie doles out this information, as well as a third act betrayal by a supposed MI6 agent, in-between quips and various poorly choreographed fight scenes. Including a sword fight! There’s also a henchman with diamonds embedded in his face. And Bond has an invisible car. Various other plot elements include Bond being tortured in North Korea for 18 months, M (Judi Dench) maybe firing Bond but maybe not, and Jinx (Halle Berry) turning out to be an NSA agent. Needless to say it’s all very complicated and ends up with Bond having to race against a sun beam on a makeshift snowboard. For a series that’s obsessed with wild plots, see Moonraker, this movie reads as if the writers just ticked off boxes on a checkmark and then put them together with sticky tack. Dumb science? Check. Insane Mega weapons? Check. Mistaken Identities? Check. Betrayals? Check. It’s all there, just not coherently.
Speaking of that makeshift snowboard, this movie uses a lot of CGI. And boy, is it certainly 2002 CGI. Therein lies the problem. Bond movies were some of the first ones to include big, technically advanced, action set pieces. The movies pushed car stunts farther than anything ever seen on the big screen before, and helped develop and promote a lot of stunt technology. So, it stands to reason that the movies would embrace a new thing that would help them show bigger and cooler stuff. But holy hell did they overshoot the mark. The aforementioned snowboard scene looks worse than some PS1 games. Those fake icebergs alone probably cost a couple million to render and they look ridiculous. Bond doesn’t even do anything cool. He sort of just tugs on some parachute ropes while shit happens around him. What a waste.
The above are just some of the most egregious examples from Die Another Day. The film is littered with them. This is a movie so obsessed with being a BOND movie, that it never tries being just a movie. By taking every Bond cliché to its logical end, it creates a sort of Frankenstein movie. Completely empty and dull. It didn’t have to end up like this. Some really good actors have roles in this movie. Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Colin Salmon, Judi Dench, Michael Madsen, John Cleese! None of these people alone could destroy a movie. But even they can’t do anything with the stinking pile of dung they were given.
Please don’t read this as a defense of the other Bond movies, especially not the Craig ones. The Craig ones in particular do the opposite of what Die Another Day does. They take all the clichés of the old movie and go “hey what if these were DARK?” as if they just listened to Marilyn Manson for the first time. Pathetic. I’ll take pre-Craig Bond movies any day. At least they understood the fact that they were ridiculous.
As a bonus here’s the theme song for Die Another Day. The worst thing Madonna has ever done.