Pierce Brosnan was one of the most polarizing James Bond actors. Most fans agree that he was perfect for the part, but his movies were very hit-and-miss. The action-packed, crowd-pleasing GoldenEye got Brosnan’s stint off to a stellar start with near-universal praise. After that, Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough both received mixed reviews.
Brosnan’s final Bond film, Die Another Day, was almost universally panned, bringing the actor’s stint as 007 to an unceremonious end. But the movie isn’t a complete disaster. It has its moments and some things, like Halle Berry’s performance as Jinx, work really well.
It’s Not As Bad As People Say
The Cold Open Is Spectacular
In the pre-title sequence of Die Another Day, Bond infiltrates a North Korean military base. He’s chased out of there on a hovercraft – the kind of vehicle that would only appear in a Bond movie – before being captured and locked in a North Korean prison camp.
Months later, 007 is exchanged for another prisoner on the Bridge of No Return. This high-stakes sequence gets the movie off to a thrilling (and surprisingly timely) start.
Halle Berry Gives An Iconic Performance As Jinx
The “Bond girl” archetype is one of the most problematic tropes from the Bond franchise. These characters are usually one-dimensional love interests whose role in the plot is confined to being an objectified damsel in distress.
In Die Another Day, Halle Berry plays Jinx Johnson, an NSA agent who’s every bit the badass spy that Bond himself is. Jinx was primed for her own spin-off, but it never materialized.
Bond Has To Earn Back His 00 Status
In the opening sequence of Die Another Day, 007 is tortured at the North Korean prison camp. After being returned to the British government, Bond is informed by M that his 00 status is being suspended on suspicion that he revealed secrets to the North Koreans during these torture sessions.
This creates an interesting conflict for Bond’s character arc. He doesn’t just have the external conflict of the mission; he has an internal struggle to win back his boss’ trust and reclaim his hard-earned job title.
Lee Tamahori Is A Great Director
Lee Tamahori is an acclaimed filmmaker with razor-sharp focus. His breakout movie, Once Were Warriors, is a powerful, moving portrait of a dysfunctional family. But in Die Another Day, his focused direction is squandered on a messy script.
Tamahori only ever directed one Bond film. After Die Another Day, he moved on to other projects. It would be interesting to see what he’d do with a stronger Bond script.
Pierce Brosnan’s Bond Is Endlessly Watchable
Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond is similar to Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker in that it’s a great performance as an iconic character that was let down by weak writing.
Despite their clichéd plotting and clumsily directed action scenes, Brosnan’s Bond movies – like Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man movies – are more than watchable because they’re anchored by a compelling lead performance.
It Is As Bad As People Say
The Plot Is Derivative
The derivative Die Another Day script, penned by regular Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, was cobbled together from all the familiar plot beats and clichés from the storied history of the franchise.
It follows the same storyline seen in a dozen other Bond movies and countless imitators and homages of the Bond style: a military bureaucrat with delusions of grandeur is developing a deadly space weapon.
There’s Too Much CGI In The Action Scenes
The best Bond action scenes show off the impressive work of the stunt team. This can be seen in breathtaking sequences like the bungee jump in GoldenEye, the Union Jack parachute jump in The Spy Who Loved Me, and the fight on the wing of a plane in Octopussy. The later Brosnan movies lacked a lot of this practical stunt work and suffered from the same problem as the Star Wars prequels: too much CGI.
Computer-generated effects were still relatively new at the time and blockbuster filmmakers were figuring out how much to use in each movie. The weightless CGI-laden action of this era of Bond went overboard in Die Another Day. 007 surfs on a computer-generated tidal wave in the finale.
The Movie Is Afraid To Explore Bond’s Darker Side
The best incarnations of Bond embrace the inherent darkness of a government-sanctioned killer who takes human lives without remorse. This dark side was previously explored in the films of Sean Connery, George Lazenby, and Timothy Dalton, and was later captured beautifully by Brosnan’s successor, Daniel Craig.
The other Brosnan movies showed glimmers of Bond’s dark side, like killing Alec Trevelyan “for me” in GoldenEye, but Die Another Day is afraid to embrace the edge.
There’s Too Much Product Placement
Product placement is one of the recurring tropes in the Bond franchise along with one-off one-dimensional love interests and climactic showdowns at secret lairs. Unfortunately, it’s a necessary evil. Without the millions of dollars that watchmakers and automobile corporations shell out to get Bond to use their products on-screen, the producers couldn’t afford all the squibs, explosions, and expendable buildings that go into bringing the spectacle of the franchise to life.
Most of the time, the product placement isn’t an active distraction throughout the film. But in Die Another Day, it is. With a whopping 20 corporations that paid to see Bond use their products, Die Another Day set the record for most companies to buy product placement in a movie. The BBC described Die Another Day as “one long advert for vodka, watches, and cars.”
The Villain Is Ridiculous (Even By Bond Standards)
The Bond franchise is famous (or infamous) for its ludicrous villains. The series has featured a megalomaniacal antagonist who wanted to destroy Silicon Valley to monopolize the microchip industry, one who wanted to destroy all the gold in Fort Knox to increase the value of his own, and one who wanted to start World War III so he could have exclusive media coverage.
But even by those standards, the villain in Die Another Day is fundamentally ridiculous. Part of Gustav Graves’ diabolical master plan involves altering his DNA to become North Korean.