Grade:  B

Director:  Lee Tamahori		Released:  November 2002
Writer:  Neal Purvis, Robert Wade		MPAA Rating:  PG-13
Players:  Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry		Running time:  133 minutes

Ratings System

To start, this is the best of the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies.  And it's better than any of Timothy Dalton's Bond attempts, which automatically makes Die Another Day the best Bond film in over 15 years.

It has a theme that goes something like this: Bond's greatest weakness comes from his love for the ladies, and so does his greatest strength.  During the traditional Bond movie opening credits, the nude silhouetted dancing girls are merged into Bond's story in the film.  They're helping him, like angels on his shoulder, through one of the worst times of his life.  I love that.

It's unfortunate that Die Another Day has a downside.  It's the ridiculousness of some of the action scenes.  I know all about Bond tradition ... getting out of sticky situations by the skin of his teeth, but I just can't stomach the impossible. 

[spoilers, highlight hidden text to read]
I can't believe (even for 5 seconds) that Bond is capable of throwing punches in between laser beams as they shoot randomly around a room.  I can't believe that he can "windsurf" down the side of a collapsing glacier, and then surf the ensuing tsunami.  And I have a hard time believing that he is able to fake a cardiac arrest (yes, I've heard of the freaks that are able to actually do that, but those guys are one in ten billion, and certainly not James Bond).  And can we have an action movie, just one action movie, where the ending is not punctuated with a fistfight between the hero and villain?  Think that's possible?  Surely there are other ways to dispatch a villain.
[end spoilers]

It's a very entertaining movie, with some of the best action scenes I've seen in a while.  And it comes close to being one of the top Bond films.

- crocoPuffs