Worst Bond Ever (well, it's a tie with Moonraker). A fitting end to the dismal Brosnan era. He was a good bond, but the movies were a catastrophy. D

Except the part in the ice palece, this is a soild entertainer.

A-

The ice palace and invisible car are just too much. When I watched the entire Bonds series last month, how mediocre this one is by comparison really stood out. C.

a clear second in my least favorite bond films.

The CGI is laughable

B

An invisible car? Seriously...

I laughed alot during this movie.

4.2/10
C-

5/10
I mean the beginning kicks ass and there is hope to get a real agent thriller with kickass action. Altough I though they are fu**** kidding when it comes to the second half and the end. I mean at the start you have a superb action sequence just to get cgi and cheesy crap at the end.
Same for the seeting. After the start I really hoped to get a darker Bond.....but at the end you cant escape all the cheesy stuff they throw at you. (WTF was that Rocketeer at the end..,.no wait maybe Robocop it was????)NO THX
I share Levys opinion. Brosnan would have been the perfect Bond and some of his movies are actually quite good (Goldeneye) or at least very enjoyable. But what they thought when they did Die Another Day I will never understand.

I really wonder how Brosnan and co. were able to keep straight faces while filming this crap.

D.

D-

trash, a gargantuan pile of trash.

All over the place Bond. Pretty much everything up to the ice palace is great, and everything after that is mediocre. The credits sequence is a classic Bond moment (except for the song), and the sword fight is quite thrilling. John Cleese fills in nicely for Q - in fact, that whole sequence, with the constant nods to past Bond films, was great - but neither Bond girl is that great, and only Zao is a decent villain. Brosnan does his best, but the ice palace ruins what could have been a great Bond film. As it stands, it's merely average.

I never thought the Ice Palace was that bad by itself. It's a very Ken Adams type set.

I think the cardiac arrest + ice palace + surfing + laser fight + invisible car + bad, bad, bad sets for exterior iceland + CG surfing + CG plane + ridiculous Icarus suit ruined the film.

There's room for these big insane Bond films in the Bond catalog. Films like Diamonds Are Forever, Moonraker, The Spy Who Loved Me, A View To A Kill... films that just go over the edge in terms of their sci-fi/fantasy leanings. The best example being You Only Live Twice, which is ridiculous and fun all of the way through. Not saying that a film like GoldenEye doesn't have a bit of the ridiculous in it, but they sell the real world aspects of it a bit more.

I guess the problem is that Brosnan's nutty Bond film is that it starts out pretty hardcore. The first 24 minutes of this is pretty intense. Bond is being tortured, there is post 9/11 terrorism going on, the hovercraft chase, North Korea... but then this cardiac arrest scene happens, and the film jerks you a slight bit. Then we get up to Cuba and it jerks you again. And then the Ice Palace sets it off and it just falls apart. You can't play uber-serious and go nutty. This is what the Moore films did well, Moore's films rarely got tooooo serious, and they kept a light flair going on. Brosnan Bond seems to want to move between silly and hardcore like it is nothing, and it just doesn't work for him.

It's also hard to have a scene like the finale, with a CG plane, also when the heavy has a costume on him that makes him look absolutely ridiculous, that spouts electricity like the Emperor from Star Wars.

I do have a slight respect for the story, it is based HEAVILY on the novel for Moonraker, so much so that it is almost eerie. The script is not necessarily the problem, but the acting and the direction in, and it's really sad, especially when compared to the other Brosnan films. Especially The World Is Not Enough, which I think is much better (despite Denise Richards) that most people give it credit for, especially Brosnan, who gives one of the best Bond performances in that film.

Die Another Day ends up just a missed opportunity. If they would have taken a few changes, and made things a bit more real (hey, the leaving-the-plane-out-the-cargo was MUCH better done 15 years prior in The Living Daylights!) it could have made a big difference... but then we may not have gotten Casino Royale, so... prehaps Die Another Day did its job.

Nice thoughts Andaroo. I'm not a big Bond fan overall, so yeah, I hated this a bit more probably. Intersting thought at the end though. Without this disaster of a Bond film, Casino Royale may have been a very different film, eh?

Well the theory is that every time a Bond film gets too crazy or over the top, it's followed by one of the best in the series that usually takes Bond back to his roots...

You Only Live Twice --> On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Moonraker --> For Your Eyes Only
A View To A Kill --> The Living Daylights
Die Another Day --> Casino Royale

the main exception being...

Diamonds Are Forever --> Live and Let Die. Now, Live and Let Die was better and far more realistic (sorta?) than Diamonds Are Forever, but it isn't that great.

Funny enough, the final film of 4 Bond actors are considered by Bond fans to be some of the worst films (Diamonds Are Forever, A View To A Kill, Licence To Kill and Die Another Day).

Live and Let Die had an awesome vibe until the guy filled up with air and popped at the end. w. t. f.

Yeah, I really love Yaphet Kotto in that movie.

Check out this interesting interview: http://www.mi6.co.uk/news/index.php?itemid=4605

Cool, I liked LALD. The beginning was awesome. The New York scene, then New Orleans... just rocked. It was fresh for Bond, that's for sure.

I just wish it was a little more lively. They say in the commentary that Diana Ross was considered for Solitare, and that actually would have been a great idea (so that not all black people besides Quarrel are E-V-I-L) I actually like Roger Moore all the way until the end of his run, but it was the only one where he looks young enough to be Ian Fleming's Bond. He was 45/46 when the film was shot and Ian Fleming says in the novel for Casino Royale that Double-0s get retired at age 45 (Bond is like 38 in the first novel).

Moore's Bond was a character I enjoyed, but not really Bond-Bond.

Towards the end of the film there is a fight between Jinx and Miranda Frost. It took twenty films to get here, but during that fight I was genuinely rooting for Frost to win. Jinx is the worst character in the history of the Bond franchise. The fact they were going to spin her off into her series is frightening. I'm not sure if they made that decision before they saw Berry's performance or after, but if it was after they made the right decision in not going through with it. It's absolutely amazing how Halle Berry gave an Oscar winning performance just the year before in Monster's Ball and here she gives a performance so horrific that it should've destroyed her career. And the double-entendres that she and Brosnan are forced to spew out...well think of the worst of the Roger Moore films and multiply that times ten.

As for the rest of the movie, well, there's actually a lot to like here, at least in the first half (song excluded). The fencing fight is extremely well done, and the underground bits with M and Q are inspired. Actually everything up to the laser fight between Bond and Jinx and Mr. Kill (subtle) isn't that bad. I also like the car chase in the ice hotel (a pretty decent if too outlandish a set). But the waveboarding, the endless use of CGI, the stupid goofy fucking suit Graves wears at the end, the laborious finale that seems to go on for hours, and the last scene with Bond and Jinx with all the talk of "sticking it in" and how "it's a perfect fit" and "don't take it out".

I think it's safe to say they got carried away here. And I can't believe I'm saying this after Moonraker, but this is worse. Both films betray the character of James Bond, but at least Moonraker is two-third's of a good movie compared to one-half.

Did I mention Madonna was in this?

The last words you hear over the ending credits are Madonna saying "I need to lie down." After watching Die Another Day I can't think of a better sentiment.

*½ (C-)

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - ***** (A+)
2. Goldfinger (1964) - ***** (A+)
3. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) - ***** (A+)
4. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) - ***** (A+)
5. From Russia with Love (1963) - ****½ (A)
6. Licence to Kill (1989) - ****½ (A)
7. Goldeneye (1995) - **** (A-)
8. The Living Daylights (1987) - **** (A-)
9. Live and Let Die (1973) - ***½ (B+)
10. You Only Live Twice (1967) - *** (B)
11. For Your Eyes Only (1981) - *** (B)
12. The World is Not Enough (1999) - *** (B)
13. Thunderball (1965) - *** (B)
14. Dr. No (1962) - *** (B)
15. A View to a Kill (1985) - **½ (B-)
16. The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) - **½ (C+)
17. Diamonds are Forever (1971) - **½ (C+)
18. Octopussy (1983) - ** (C)
19. Moonraker (1979) - ** (C)
20. Die Another Day (2002) - *½ (C-)

OMG god the fencing scene is so fucking bad. I guess it's now having fenced in real life it's beyond retarded, or the fact that the other 500 people in the building are just kind of sitting by doing nothing.

The film is actually best since Goldeneye until he leaves Cuba. Bond was Rogue on a Vendetta and then "All is forgiven, back to work,"
Halle Berry isn't really bad, but she's given nothing to do other than look hot and give a little ghetto USA that Bond apparently was desperate to have. The rest is just downright lowest form of cash grabbing.

First half Solid A
Second Half Solid D
All in all C+, 2nd worst of Brosnan's Bond film's just above the instantly forgettable Tomorrow Never Dies.

Rewatching this, it is obvious the exact same script would make a killer satire/parody, espec. Jynx's role. God is her writing awful. One of the series worst. Like Connery and Moore, Brosnan is just way too old in this one. The sword fight, the sun laser beam, the ice car chase, the entire plane fight, surfing a tsunami....everything is just SO stupid. Jynx being written as Foxy Brown takes the cake - what an awful character.

yet this did an inflated 65/200ish. shaking my head

I agree that Jynx's character is terrible. But she is really sexy, which makes up for it. The film is just bad.

D