DIE ANOTHER Day is an exhilarating movie that is bound to satisfy its
audience.
Those who are sworn members of the James Bond Fan Club will not be disappointed. However, if you have never seen a James Bond film, forget that you have no background knowledge - you will not need any. Concentrate instead on enjoying this superb and fantastic instalment in the James Bond franchise.
The beauty about Die Another Day is that it can be watched for different reasons. There are enough action sequences for thrill seekers, the plot is decent, the dialogue is delivered with panache and there are many layers to the lead characters.
Die Another Day opens with an incredible surfing scene.
It is full of energy and verve and takes place off the coast of North Korea. The director Lee Tamahori, who has a very keen eye, pulled off this scene perfectly. The scene was shot in the night, true to the espionage nature of the film, and illustrates nicely the mad, splashing waves from all angles. The tempo and wide-eyed amazement continues until the credit rolls and the movie starts in earnest.
The plot sees the high-ranking British spy James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) impersonating his way into the demilitarised zone of North Korea. He meets with Gustuv Graves (Toby Stephens), the villain, and simultaneously meets with betrayal. He is captured and tortured to an appropriate theme song performed by Madonna.
Herein lies one of the major premises of the movie. James Bond is a spy hero who many fans like to think of as invincible. However, in this latest movie he has glaring human failures and is at the mercies of his enemies. However, it is not that Bond has gone soft. The detour from the norm enhances the movie. In addition, Bond, in no time, restores himself to the dapper, fast-talking secret agent who always manages to extract himself from sticky situations, and his failures only lend credibility to the movie and up its drama quotient.
Political wheeling and dealings guarantees his release from his captors. He faces his boss M (Judi Dench), who accuses him of fouling up the operation and tells him that he is of no longer of use. However, James Bond is not done yet. Nobody ever sees the last of him. It will be only a matter of time before he is back in the loop.
Bond cuts himself loose from the hospital in which he was placed and starts on a mission that matters to him - to find his traitor and bringing him or her down. He makes contact with persons who have similar axes to grind and learns that his man is in Cuba. In Cuba he meets up with Jinx (Oscar-winner Halle Berry) and the action definitely picks up.
So much so that it takes him to London (and of course he travels on British Airways and in Cuba there were Heineken-swigging men huddled around tables), where he meets the double-edged sword Miranda Frost (Rosomand Pike). Frost poses as the press secretary and fencing coach for the chief villain, Gustav Graves. Bond pursuits further take him to Iceland where the 'chilling' denouement takes place. The action moves back to North Korea, completing the symbolic circling of the globe since it is the place where it all began. Die Another Day is replete with many thrilling scenes from start to finish, which includes a testosterone-induced fencing game and a high-speed and high-tech car chase in the dead cold of Iceland between Bond and the villain's ally Zao (Rick Yune). Bond is spurred on by the need to 'save' Jinx, who after their tryst in Cuba he feels the need to rescue. However, he is yet to find out just how gritty and how much of a 50/50 match she is for him, which is what made the movie fun to watch in the first place.
Jinx, who stepped in the movie from out of the cold blue sea in a bikini just in time to save the plot, wows both Bond and the audience. She flaunts for him and the camera in one of the most memorable scenes of the movie. She is more that just a pretty face, though. She matches Bond's quick repartee with witty comebacks of her own. If at times the dialogue appears a little stilted it is through no fault of the actress or actor but due to the emphasis placed on ensuring that the audience grasped every one of the double entendres and the plays on words that make the movie so much more appealing.
Apart from these two stars, Toby Stephen's Gustav Graves makes the mark as the pompous, power-obsessed radical whose media attention, stunts and lavish parties are superceded only by his ego, which in the end proves self-destructive.
The various locations in which the movie was filmed created visual diversions and help to make the movie spicy. It also shows the ingenuity of the director in recreating a credible a Cuba that looks very much like the real deal. Hats off too Halle Berry, who braves the cold reality of Spain, where the bikini scene was filmed, while pretending to be on a tropical island.
