so here it is folks i missed the kill oh there's a name to die for here is the all-time low point
of the james bond franchise die another day if ever there was a movie that was proof that big
box office didn't mean a big success it was this film this movie was so bad that despite being
the biggest james bond financial hit of all time the studio decided to completely scrap what they
were doing with the franchise and start over so how bad is die another day and why is it so bad
well folks it's a long story and we're going to get into it today on this installment of james
bond revisited die another day so where did it all go wrong let us begin in the late fall of 1999
the world is not enough despite middling reviews from critics and a lot of james bond fans was
another james bond hit in fact it was the highest grossing film of the franchise up to the time
it was so big in fact that eon wanted to bring director michael apted back to direct another
installment but mgm had different ideas you see at the time james bond had some super spy competition
john woo's mission possible 2 was like a bond movie on steroids and in fact
it totally reinvented tom cruise as the superstar action guy which he had never really been up to
that point even in the first mission impossible the action was modest in mission impossible too he
was getting into kung fu fights he was shooting off guns there were doves it was pretty badass
even though the movie was average and at the time vin diesel's xxx was being heavily hyped
as the next big deal spy believe it or not at the time everybody thought that vin diesel was
going to be the biggest action star of all time was get a rival sylvester stallone and arnold
schwarzenegger the fast and the furious had been a massive hit everybody thought the triplex was just
gonna be this generation defining hit and mgm was so afraid of bonds seeming archaic in competition
they made eon an intriguing proposition so vin diesel's xxx was going to open with a scene
that they were really hyping up where a james bond type figure played by thomas ian griffith
parachutes into this big rave and immediately gets killed now he was obviously supposed to
be a james bond kind of cipher and i think the movie was trying to send the message that james
bond was old-fashioned xander cage was the new [ __ ] so they made eon an intriguing proposition
as this would mark the james bond franchise's 40th anniversary and the 20th official james bond film
remember that 1967's casino royale and 1983's never never again were unofficial bond entries
they would increase the budget substantially to make this a double 07 epic but here's the caveat
mgm wanted a better action director than michael apted in fact the one everyone seemed really
high on at the time was tony scott and even john woo's name was bandied about but here's the thing
neither guy wanted to do it because they logically assumed that they wouldn't get
the creative control they were accustomed to from barbara brockley and michael g wilson's eon indeed
eventually when it was realized then a-list action director was unlikely to sign on
they went back to michael laptop who by then was actually busy doing the movie enigma eventually
the job went to new zealand's lee tamahori who directed the classic once were warriors again
not necessarily the kind of guy you'd choose for a james bond movie but it was still kind of an
outside the box choice in fact this was the first time they wouldn't have a director that was old
and british he was a young guy from new zealand his vision of die another day was big just as
big as the studio was hoping for so much though that the film unfortunately has aged like old milk
with subpar cgi a listless pierce brosnan and what unfortunately would turn out to be his swan
song as bond and some of the worst writing in the franchise although you really can't blame
neil purvis and robert wade the guys who are kind of always used as the punching bag for james bond
fans i take it mr bond's been explaining his big bang theory oh yeah i think i got the thrust of it
jesus so barbara broccoli michael g wilson and the writers neil purvis and robert wade always said
that they completely misjudged what fans wanted out of this however i think that there were a lot
of reasons this movie went awry and unfortunately i think a lot of the blame can be laid at the feet
of director lee tomohori who obviously wanted to make this big big action movie but it just
comes off as garish and silly now in this movie james bond ends up being imprisoned in north korea
after a diamond exchange gone awry he gets out looks for a venge and for some reason it all leads
to an ice palace and an invisible aston martin halle berry is jinx and well some pretty stupid
action sequences including a big tidal wave and a parachute oh my god so everybody hates this james
bond movie but i thought i'd do something a little bit different i thought that i would tell you guys
right off the bat that there are actually a couple of things that i like about this movie in fact
when i saw die another day for the first time i was still a huge huge huge huge james bond fan and
relatively young i was about 19 old enough to know better that this wasn't a good movie but i think
i was just in denial like a lot of people were when they maybe saw some of the star wars prequels
for the first time i couldn't accept that a james bond movie was anything but awesome and i remember
writing a really impassioned review of this movie for the university newspaper that i worked for the
concordian when i was like okay so it's a it's an assembly line james bond movie but the formula is
perfect it doesn't need to be messed with funny story i went to see it for the first time alone
loved it brought my friends back to see it that evening they all hated it and told me i was crazy
for liking it and that it was the worst james bond movie ever and i was so so so upset but i'll
maintain there are a couple things that i like about this movie so i'm going to give you the top
10 well okay maybe not the top 10 but let's say the top five things that i like about this movie
so number one holly berry is jinx i really think that holly berry who had just won an oscar for
monsters ball is a bit of a cut above in terms of james bond girls i mean she looks absolutely
gorgeous when she does that kind of emerging for the surf thing that's a reference to ursula
andrews and the orange bikini just i mean looks amazing on her and i like barry a lot in this
movie in fact she was such a popular character that they were actually thinking of spinning off
and doing another franchise with her and they got so far as to hire a director steven freyr's and
complete a script alas at the time mgm just didn't think that halle berry could carry an action movie
i guess the non-success of catwoman kind of put the final nail in the coffin for this movie and
they decided to basically reboot the franchise so one thing i like about this movie holly berry
number two is the other bond girl rosman pike this is actually i think her first movie and i remember
just being stunned at this gorgeous english woman in the film and she's so young she's like 21 22.
i mean drop dead gorgeous i really knew that she was going to become somebody off of this movie and
in terms of bond girls i think she's had one of the best careers ever i mean she's an academy
award nominee she was gone girl she just did i care a lot she's really terrific and i liked her
in this movie number three thing i like about this movie the opening hovercraft sequence
it's a really good chase i mean it's wildly over the top and like something out of another movie
not really a james bond movie but it is pretty cool although it's a lot like the boat chase at
the beginning of world is not enough i think they figured that everybody loved that chase so why
not put it on hovercraft the fourth thing i like about the movie is actually kind of the first act
i enjoy it when james bond is a prisoner in north korea you see that he's a little bit [ __ ] up
from his mission everything isn't quite right with bond he's gone a little bit squirrely he escapes
and goes for revenge and then the fifth thing that i like about this movie but it's probably the last
thing that i like about this movie is the sword fight between toby stevens is gustav graves and
james bond it's a pretty good sword fight but it's pretty much ruined by madonna's really unnecessary
cameo and the fact that toby stevens just really sucks as a james bond villain but we'll get to
that a little bit later so even if however there were five things that i loved about this james
bond movie there are also more than five things that i hate about this james bond movie and i'll
give you five of the absolute worst culprits so number one is toby stevens as gustav graves now
i know he's supposed to be willian lee's character having gotten plastic surgery but it's so stupid i
mean come on and toby stevens just camps it up in this movie he was the youngest james bond villain
ever and he really didn't have the gravitas that he needed but i don't think anybody could
have done much better with this really stupid premise oh look parachutes for the both of us
whoops not anymore the second thing i hate about this movie oddly enough
kind of involves the david arnold score i love david arnold i think he's probably the best
composer the james bond series ever had outside of john berry and i think his score for the movie
is actually pretty good because it works in a lot of the classic james bond themes like thunderball
because it's a tribute to the franchise's history being the 40th anniversary and the 20th james
blonde movie but i don't know whose idea this was probably lee tomohori's they put in a lot of like
moaning on the soundtrack i think to be like lee gerard's music in gladiator and it really
doesn't work in fact that brings me to another thing that i absolutely hate about this movie
it's the fact that they're ripping off every other action movie that was made in the era i mean you
even have bullet time in a james bond movie bullet time why why did anybody think this was a good
idea whoa and then i know i'm gonna probably be going away over five in this there's the theme
song by madonna which i thought was kind of catchy but didn't belong in a james bond movie way too
techno-y with this break in the middle video this is a little bit too much and i remember prince
charles saying that he wished he had earmuffs when he went to see the premiere of this oh god
and then there's the invisible aston martin that's not much better i mean an invisible car in a james
bond movie i'm all for a suspension of disbelief but this is just crazy oh boy and then there's the
ice palace which is fine i guess who would ever spend a night in an ice palace though there is one
that actually exists in quebec and that's where it was filmed but people don't actually spend
the night there they go there for an hour because who wants to sleep on a bed made of ice there's
even a sex scene on a bed made of ice but i mean i feel like there would have been some shrinkage
going on there i don't know if james bond would have really pleased rosman pike in this scene
i have been known to keep my tip up oh god and then there's the cgi with the tidal wave
that has just become this infamous james bond moment that everybody cringes at oh boy i think
i'm really over five here aren't i people i guess i'll stop anyway suffice to say there's a lot that
i really don't like about die another day the movie is a mess so let's break it down blonde
girls as i said before the thing that i like the most about this movie holly berry is terrific is
jinx rosman pike is absolutely gorgeous in this too i give the bawn girls probably a 9 on 10.
surprisingly solid in this department and the chemistry between holly berry and pierce brosnan
is really good although i found their love scene at the end awkward brazen always kind of does this
bitey thing when he's making love to women that i find kind of strange villains terrible one on 10
probably the worst james bond villains ever i like willian lee in this role but you know they get rid
of him at the beginning right away and replace him with toby stevens which is kind of racist
right it's so stupid uh and willian lee has a really good introduction where he's doing
kickboxing on a punching bag which happens to have a soldier inside of it i think he actually would
have been a really good villain for this movie you know especially with him being so physical
it would have been cool to see him go up against james bond seemingly all the martial arts that
he's so proficient at early in the movie seems to be dropped when he turns into toby stevens
rick yun plays the henchman and he has kind of a cool face with the diamonds in it but
i didn't find him very memorable either so the villains in this movie are a complete disaster
the screenplay for this movie belongs in the toilet i can't believe that purpose
and weight even signed the name to it although i think they were rewritten a lot who sent you
your mama and she told me to tell you she's really disappointed in you
the score as i said before i have very mixed feelings over i think that what david arnold does
with the references to the james bond franchise is good but i don't like the little gladiator esmonds
that they put into it i give it maybe a six on ten also the movie ends with a paul oakenfield cover
of the james bond theme which is so dated all told i have to say this probably results in the worst
ever james bond movie a one that i'd hesitate to give a three on ten because i do think it's
kind of watchable in a so bad it's good kind of way but this is arguably the batman and robin
of the franchise and part of it has to do i'm afraid to say with pierce brosnan's performance
at this point he was in his 50s he still looked good but i think he was tired of the role piers
brosnan has always complained with the way that the franchise ended for him with him
not being able to return to the role and that he apparently wanted to return to the role and
he said that he was fired from the part i was wondering why the door closed on me
i thought everything was going so well you know come back they said come back yeah all right
there you go we won't talk about it it's a cool business it's always been a cool business but i
remember when this movie came out pierce brosnan would often say in interviews that he was kind
of getting sick of the role and then he never really got a chance to do other things outside
of the franchise and i think it really shows in this movie when he's opposite holly berry
it kind of works because they have pretty good chemistry but otherwise he seems bored i mean
the cgi scenes that he's put himself into i'm sure that he knows it's completely ridiculous
and it doesn't work so i can't really blame him for giving his most listless performance ever as
james bond which i would give i don't know maybe a 6 on 10. pierce brosnan's never bad but he's
not great in this movie it has to be said again i think a lot of the blame probably lies at the feet
of director lee tomohari who really didn't seem cut out to make this kind of james bond movie and
when it came out it was a huge hit i mean it made something over 534 million dollars
worldwide which was a franchise record and i think that everybody thought wow this is this is james
bond now and we're gonna keep getting piers brosnan movies and he's gonna be playing bond
until he retires from the role which could be who knows when he's 70 or 80 years old but it really
didn't happen i think people behind the scenes saw the movie and really were honest with themselves
we're honest with the fact that it didn't work and it was probably the worst film in the franchise
it was kind of the moment they had with moon waker where they could go even more outlandish and make
it a total parody of itself or they could stop rethink things in fact purvis and wade when they
were working on casino royale originally intended at the star pierce brosnan but here's the thing
in the movie they wanted him to have a really strong relationship with west berlin and it
didn't make as much sense to have bond in his 50s have this kind of love story where he kind of
re-examines his place in the world now you needed a young james bond and this was the perfect chance
to kind of launch the character and show him why he does become so callous to women at times in the
franchise and unfortunately for that you needed a younger actor playing james bond i'll say this
pierce brosnan never really got a fair shake at playing james bond he was very successful in the
role at least financially but in terms of material he never really got anything that lived up to the
promise of goldeneye and i think that he if he had been re-teamed with martin campbell on a much down
and dirtier and leaner james bond movie i think he would have probably done a really good one i kind
of resent the fact that eon never really did give him the proper james bond movie that he deserved
and i wish that they had just done a one-off with him somewhere in there after die another day and
maybe before daniel craig to let him say goodbye to the role and let him really show people what he
was worth but he never really got the chance and i think that piers brosnan sadly has always resented
that fact a bit and i don't really blame him years later he would try to do his own quasi-james bond
movie with the november man but it was terrible it was low budget and it was really dumb oddly sexist
did not like this movie at all and pierce brosnan unfortunately still looked the part but you know
he needed that machinery with eon pictures that said don't feel too bad for him because i would
say he probably did his best acting ever right after he was fired from the james bond franchise
in the amazing movie the matador daddy daddy daddy with the lunch what fanny
and pierce brosnan i think has also really proved naysayers in recent years that he's
a terrific actor when given the opportunity so die another day has a very very poor legacy it's
the batman and robin of the james bond franchise and definitely the least successful of the series
since at least man with the golden gun which i think a lot more people like than die another
day anyways so this has been a rather tragic installment of the james bond revisited series
there are a lot of things wrong with this movie but again it does have a couple of moments that i
like and you know even the worst james bond movies are still kind of good when you get down to it
alas the piers brosnan era has come to a close but things are going to kick off with a bang when we
enter the daniel craig era but that's all to come on the next installment of james bond revisited
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