Another autopsy from guest investigator Winston. Thanks, Winston!

I like Die Another Day (2002). This is with the proviso that it is looked at solely as an action picture. On this level it delivers to the extreme, despite fumbling the ball with some woeful CG and an unimaginative script. Die Another Day also contains many references to earlier films for this is the 20th in the series and the 40th anniversary since Dr No was released in 1962. Over these twenty films and forty years the Bond series has delivered up a lot of action. Each new Bond film faces the challenge of remaining fresh, while remaining recognizably “Bond”. Die Another Day does this by putting Bond in a contemporary Cold War thriller. This is a great idea, for it hasn’t been tried since For Your Eyes Only (1981), and (still) hasn’t fully succeeded since From Russia with Love (1963). The major fault with Die Another Day is its abandonment of this wonderful idea. But this needn’t happen. There should be an area between the reality of George Smiley and the superhuman excesses of Bond. First I’ll look at the film’s weak points. Next I’ll give an alternate version of the film.

The character of Zao is weak. The series has had several memorable henchmen – Red Grant, Oddjob and Jaws – but Zao is given short shrift in the menacing stakes. While thought has been put into his physical characteristics, with his incomplete genetically altered face being embedded with diamonds, he is given little to do, and when he does he is either failing or escaping. He doesn’t take part in the opening hovercraft chase, he is running away at the Cuban clinic, and while it is he pursuing Bond in the car chase, this finishes with his death. And in this Zao was unfortunately sacrificed before his time, for the henchman should be there at the climactic battle. But Zao had to die so that the face-offs can occur between Bond/Graves, and Frost/Jinx.

The character of Jinx is very uneven. Having the Best Actress Oscar® winner in the film is a boon, but Jinx’s screen time and similarities to Bond draw attention from him and Jinx is used in an up and down way. In Cuba she is introduced as professional and dangerous, yet spends the middle of the film as a damsel in distress, only to return to action hero status for the climax. After Bond rescues her from the lasers, and just as they are about to sneak into Graves’ base Jinx says that she’ll go and get back up. Who was she going to get? Does she have a team with her? If so they are never shown, and it becomes obvious that her real reason for returning is so she can be captured and locked in the Ice Palace to be rescued by Bond… again.

Having two agencies, MI6 and the NSA, plus agents from the NSA, Jinx and her boss Damian Falco, is too many for this Bond film. Falco and the NSA take the focus from Bond’s hunt for the traitor in his own agency. Were Die Another Day a straight espionage thriller the prominent presence of several agents would be expected, but it merely borrows the cloak and dagger trench coat of the genre. Previously a single agent represented the other agency (Felix Leiter or Jack Wade was the CIA), or Bond’s plot wasn’t so difficult to unravel. But this time he not only has to save the world, he must also discover who the traitor is. Combining this with face time for the regular cast of Brosnan’s MI6 – M, Q, Miss Moneypenny, and Charles Robinson, doesn’t even leave time for an appearance by Chief of Staff Bill Tanner.

General Moon and his troops appear too soon and in the wrong kind of vehicles after the hovercraft chase. Colonel Moon explained that only hovercraft could make it across the minefield, yet seconds after Bond was saved by the bell (great one-liner) General Moon arrives in a jeep. Maybe they headed Bond off at the pass?

There is too much CG. The worst offense is the escape from the ice on the parasail. A feature of any Bond film is the stunts, so the inclusion of this CG parasail scene is incomprehensible. The abysmal fakery of the scene is exposed even more when viewed against the superb surfing from the pre-title sequence.

But unfortunately surfing should have never been in the movie. Bond surfing? And not just any old surfing, but giant wave surfing. Yes, he enjoys water sports, being a great swimmer and accomplished underwater diver, but surfing is a bit of a stretch. Bond is unfortunately becoming the King of Extreme Sportsâ„¢, and this film commits the sin twice with the faked parasailing. If Bond is master of all things, then there is no tension about how he will escape certain death.

This is not a personal complaint, but many fans consider the Aston Martin’s invisibility to be ludicrous. While the bubble of technological believability was always stretched pretty thin in Bond films, removing the ability and replacing it with one that is already accepted into the canon – the submersible car from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), easily remedies the complaint. This ties in with the 40th anniversary theme and would nicely match the reappearance in the chase over the ice of the ejection seat.

There is some bad dialogue, especially in the humor. Wit was a hallmark of the classic Bonds, but in the contemporary Bonds it seems to be replaced by lazy puns or puerile innuendo. The fencing “jokes” were about keeping one’s end up, and “What’ the point?” Do you get it? The “Big Bang Theory” exchange between Miranda and Jinx when they meet in the Ice Palace revolves around an extremely tenuous and unfunny conceit. And the first meeting between Bond and Jinx, far from being the witty or smolderingly sexy scene that the writers intended, is at worst a string of non-sequiturs and at best excised material from the Monty Python’s “Do you like photographs?” sketch.

This is just a personal opinion, but I wouldn’t have taken the M / Bond relationship in the direction it goes. There has been a definite progression in the working relationship between Bond and his superior in the Brosnan Bonds. In GoldenEye M is terse and declares him to be a misogynist dinosaur. In Tomorrow Never Dies she respects his ability to get the job done, and defends him from Admiral Roebuck. The World is Not Enough sees Bond saving M’s life when she is kidnapped. For Die Another Day, where the positions are reversed for Bond is now on the defensive, I would have had M aiding Bond as he did for her in the previous film.

But Die Another Day’s major problem is the loss of the Cold War thriller story. It should be fixed on whom is Zao working with, who is the real traitor, and can Bond prove his innocence before he is recaptured? Everything else should be window-dressing to these points. Die Another Day challenged the public’s image of Bond, while putting him in a story reminiscent of Fleming. The infallible Bond of the movies was never Fleming’s creation; however Bond’s imprisonment and torture in North Korea could have come from the pages of Fleming. These are a surprise for the movie’s audience, and their repercussions should have remained the engine driving the film. Setting the Bond of the new millennium in a Cold War story against the last remaining Cold War countries is brilliant. But as the action increases, the Cold War tension melts amid the chases and explosions.

Next is the alternate version. As the movie begins Bond and the two other MI6 agents HALO/switchblade/latest high-tech espionage technique into North Korea. Bond’s mission is to assassinate Colonel Moon, an arms dealer in stolen advanced Korean weapons, and his henchman Zao, a psycho-madman terrorist. Moon has been financing Zao’s terrorist attacks against England, a country Moon detests because of its decadent capitalist ways even though he was educated there. The agents take control of the helicopter and Bond assassinates and impersonates the courier. Bond should assassinate the courier to remind everyone that he is a 00 agent with a license to kill. But Bond is known to be an MI6 agent before he arrives at the DMZ, and Moon plans to embarrass MI6 and escalate the already tense political situation with England. After killing Bond Moon will inform his father General Moon, who is the head of the North Korean investigation into the stolen advanced weaponry, that it was Bond, an MI6 spy, who was the arms dealer. Colonel Moon destroys the helicopter with the other agents. The agents in the helicopter need to be shown preparing some kind of rescue plan just before their deaths, to remind the audience that Bond is now without backup. Moon plays his Monologue card and yaps to Bond of his hatred for the West and that North Korea has a greater destiny that will soon be fulfilled. Bond claims that Moon is, of course, totally mad.

In the pre-title sequence Zao should feature more. Rather than be sidelined during the chase, Zao quickly recovers from the blast and joins the pursuit of Bond. It is Zao, alone, who captures Bond after Colonel Moon’s “death”. Because of this Zao is in General Moon’s good book, for he is the man who caught the arms dealer and the murderer of his son. Zao also appears a little in the title sequence as one of the torturers of Bond. While Bond is in prison Zao will be away killing Western agents, so Zao will only be seen near the start of the torture sequence as one of the tough guys holding Bond’s head underwater and giving him a little tenderizing in the chair.

The meeting with M is the point where the story undergoes major changes. M is angry that Bond was foolish enough to be captured and so obviously framed as the arms dealer; he truly is an embarrassment for the service. She doesn’t believe that he is the source of the recent leaks, but so far she has no evidence to prove otherwise. Everyone in MI6 believes that Bond cracked under torture, and it his information that aided Zao to recently go on a killing spree of Western agents. M however can’t ignore that Bond has saved her in the past, and although she can’t openly support him, she will repay the debt. M surreptitiously assists Bond to escape, but before he leaves she tells him that she will be forced to send MI6 agents to recapture him. His mission is to find Zao who has continued his evil terrorist ways, track him to the person who is his new financer, and to find the real leak at MI6.

After the Chinese agent informs Bond of Zao’s whereabouts he then informs MI6 of Zao and Bond’s whereabouts. M orders an MI6 agent team headed by Jinx to Cuba to assassinate Zao and to recapture Bond. Jinx, after sleeping with Bond, reports to M that she has found Bond. M, in trying to aid Bond, tells her to wait in case Bond’s absence should alert Zao. When they are together on the island Jinx and her team can take care of them at the same time. But Bond and the audience hear only Jinx’s side of this conversation, and it sounds to him and us that Jinx may be the traitor. But the real traitor, Miranda Frost, has already told Zao (off camera) that he will be attacked, and so he has prepared a surprise for them. Zao at his nefarious best makes Jinx appear to be the traitor, before kidnapping her and escaping. But during the fight Bond gets the diamonds from Zao’s neck that leads him to London and Gustav Graves.

After the sword fight at Blades it is Miranda and not a porter who gives Bond the message to meet M. But Miranda has faked the message to capture Bond. Die Another Day as the 20th picture in the 40th anniversary has many references to the earlier films. Miranda could use the knockout gun from Goldfinger (1964) for a reference to the earlier picture. Bond wakes to find himself in the disused Underground station with M, who is less than happy to see him apparently captured with nothing to show for his release. But after Bond tells her that there is some connection between Graves and Zao, and that Jinx was the traitor, M is happier. She distrusts Graves, and initiated the investigation that has put Miranda undercover as his personal assistant. M is glad to be vindicated, reinstates Bond, and it’s off to the Ice Palace.

At the Ice Palace Miranda enjoys toying with Bond. Bond infiltrates the fake diamond mine and discovers Jinx about to suffer death by laser as she has failed to give up any information. After Mr. Kil makes his exit Bond rescues Jinx and they team up to go further into the fake diamond mine in search of Graves and Zao. In the glass-floored room a Mexican standoff ensues with first Bond getting the drop on Graves, who is then covered by Zao, who is then covered by Jinx, who is finally covered by Miranda. Jinx doesn’t want to give up, but Bond’s weakness for women in danger causes him to relinquish his gun. After being knocked to his feet by Zao, Bond signals to Jinx that he’s about to escape. Bond shatters the glass, and he runs towards his car while Jinx makes for the Ice Palace.

Zao and Bond go straight into the car chase. Meanwhile Miranda chases Jinx into the Ice Palace and Graves makes his way to the Antonov that has already landed. Jinx and Miranda battle in the Ice Palace, and when she can’t beat Jinx Miranda traps her in a room. Miranda tells Graves this, and he fires Icarus upon the Ice Palace. Bond drives the Aston into the Ice Palace to save her, with Zao not far behind. They battle in the melting Ice Palace, but finally Zao flees because it is too dangerous to stay. He drives his car into the Antonov that then takes off for North Korea. Bond saves Jinx but they can’t drive out, crashing through the floor as Zao does in the original film. Graves satellite shows that the Aston never made it out of the Ice Palace, and he assumes that they have died. But the Aston has transformed into its submersible version to escape. Bond and Jinx report back to MI6. The infiltration of North Korea begins. The climactic fight in the Antonov involves Miranda again dueling with Jinx, but Bond must face off against both Graves and Zao.

To tell the truth I am not totally happy with this alternate version. I would much prefer to have Bond being pursued by MI6 while he pursues Zao, Graves and the traitor until the end of the film. But I don’t want to deviate too much; otherwise it becomes unrecognizable from the original – in effect a new treatment. Brosnan will not be returning for the 21st film, and mores the pity, I have liked his Bond. I hope the makers of the next phase of Bond films return them to their roots. Look at the first four films of the series. That is the kind of Bond movie I want to see.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 25th, 2004 at 7:24 pm and is filed under Action, Bond, D, winston. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.