Laden with homage to the past nineteen films this XXXed James Bond adventure is hyperbolically grandiose and a chic exercise in the passé spy ritual. The extravagance of this Bond teems and tears itself in two over out-performing its insignificant imitators of this year (XXX, The Transporter, and to an extent Austin Powers in Goldmember) and remaining true to the classic spy elements the series has so heartedly tried to uphold. Ultimately (and inevitably) these catalysts result in a slow collapse in the final third with a slightly redeeming Oedipus complication amidst poorly and tardily introduced Po-Mo gadgetry quibbled over in über-battles. Raucously marathon but ultimately infantile, Lee Tamahori’s Die Another Day is garishly asinine and stirringly entertaining, tongue firmly in cheek and promiscuity running rampant. That’s what we like about Bond though, right?
Respectable in its generational gap bridging, between classic curmudgeons and neophytes alike, Die Another Day has its worth as a piece of frothy entertainment from the series, employed with neo-revision of Bond trademarks (e.g. the opening musical sequence, anticommunism, Bond babe beddings), it suffices and quite satisfactorily. In the usually compelling insight of duality the film presupposes to outdo XXX, fuelled with condescending disdain perhaps, and succeeds in doing so, but nevertheless features some scenes almost embodying XXX’s needless facsimile. Apart from Rob Cohen’s ridiculously injudicious farce, Die Another Day actually attempts to flesh out exotic characters and villains who, despite their few ludicrous conveniences and contradictions (as usual) in full camp mode getting their better, typify a propitious familiarity. Adequately illustrated and colored with the Old Hat Factory’s innocently unpretentious magic marker the stock and trade action figures pose satisfyingly enough: Bond is wryly perceptive and mostly misogynistic, the villain inscrutably megalomaniacal, and the girls plentifully bouncy as well as improbably cunning.
When a high-priced diamond bust with North Korean military goes terribly awry, leaving a general’s son dead and a Korean terrorist facially disfigured, British spy James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) lands in a military prison base for fourteen months. Enter the obligatory musical number, this time updated with a brand of Madonna (who later makes a pointless cameo) electronica, sequenced over a hypnotic exhibition of Bond’s torture. After a trade-off with Allied forces, Bond is exchanged for the now scarred terrorist Zao (Rick Yune, The Fast and The Furious) and is suspended by M (Judi Dench) for the lengthy bungle. Bond heads out on his own to track Zao, ends up in Cuba, beds spicy NSA (is the CIA too busy for the movies these days?) agent Jinx (a surprisingly nondescript Halle Berry), and then makes his way back to England. The new Q (John Cleese) equips the impossibly superhuman agent with neo-gadgets such as an invisible Aston Martin, a high-pitched ring, etc., meanwhile diamond tycoon/entrepreneur Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens, a Guy Pearce/Jason Lee hybrid) becomes suspect, leading Bond to a whimsical Iceland.
Brosnan, who is (in my opinion) perhaps second in rank just behind Sean Connery of the Bond players hierarchy, once again laps up his (now) trademark role with the cocky, dehumanized suavity some complained was absent in Michael Apted’s The World is Not Enough. Though not really near the rather pathetically blasé Tomorrow Never Dies and not quite equal to the thrilling Goldeneye (still the best of the Brosnan Era) this installment is laudably fascinating hokum. Surreptitious and subliminal the forty years of Bond homage compiled into one dense concentration seems almost a miraculous stunt, and to the untrained eye much of it will slip under the radar, perhaps decided as quite original. However, this sometimes primordial obeisance lessens the experience to a masturbatory, surreal complex of self-awareness, self-allusion and perpetual déjà vu.
Not that Die Another Day’s anthology of the series’ self-excavating reference and indulgence is worth condoning but its immoderation nonetheless strikes some chords of odd interest, perhaps in its parade of Bond re-staging (i.e. Berry’s Ursula Andress impersonation, a laser chair contraption, and a satellite of mass destruction.) Therein lies its success and failure as a submission to the avaricious system of which it emanated, breathing understated disdain for its bawdy imitators and exorcising any verisimilitude or resemblance, but that’s a given. Though the thrills boom in pace and visceral excitement abounds, Tamahori’s (who previously made The Edge and Along Came a Spider) occasional slipshod direction of banal camera and tactless luster makes the bittersweet confection a bit less satiable. Rallying volatile glitz and bullet hail with an often-delicious vim and yielding to the superficial charm that’s become the staple of the Bond series, Die Another Day rouses with a variation in locale flavor and worship. But eventually it must be considered if the XXX homage was absolutely necessary.