We're celebrating 2002 this week. Here's Deborah Lipp...
When Die Another Day was released in November of 2002, it was greeted with tempered enthusiasm. Spending time, as I do, among movie fans, and within the narrower Bond fan community, there were certain very clear reactions: Invisible car: Dumb; Madonna song: Bad; Movie overall: Pretty damn great.
How the mighty have fallen. I should explain...
I am the author of The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book (currently out of print; an updated edition will be released in advance of No Time to Die). My book was first published in 2006 just as the world was awaiting Casino Royale; Die Another Day was, thus, the most recent film included.
One of the features of the book then (and in the upcoming edition) is extensive survey data. Looking at how fans rank James Bond films in 2020 compared to 2006 is interesting. Most movies are more or less where they were then, with a modicum of shuffling to make room for the four Daniel Craig movies. The only movies that have changed significantly are The World is Not Enough (1999), which dropped 10 positions, and Die Another Day (2002), which dropped 13. As a matter of fact, Die Another Day went from center of the pack to dead last.
I can’t explain it.
Rosamund Pike vs. Halle Berry
The World is Not Enough is actually easy to explain: A dark, moody romance ending in a tragic death, was supplanted by a much better dark, moody romance ending in a tragic death. We don’t need you, World..., we have Casino Royale now!
It’s not that there’s nothing to criticize about Die Another Day. It was criticized in 2002 for being overblown. It perhaps seems worse now, because the Daniel Craig movies are so dialed back, so earthy. But there’s also much to love in the last Brosnan film, and fans have forgotten that.
Pierce Brosnan, imprisoned
The first hour of Die Another Day is hard-as-nails, gritty espionage, with a fantasy edge. It’s surely Pierce Brosnan’s best work in the series (his performance was richly praised by no less than Roger Ebert). It takes Bond to a darker and uglier place than he’d ever been, imprisoned and tortured for fourteen months. There are, in this hour, scenes that stand among the best that 007 has to offer—an extraordinary swordfight with the villain, a breathtaking surfing sequence, an audacious stroll into the Hong Kong Yacht Club as if barefoot and dripping wet is how everyone arrives.
The middle section is where it gets fantastical—invisible car and ice palace included. I like the fantasy elements of James Bond movies, provided they’re not too campy. An ice palace is a worthy throwback to the days of hollowed-out volcanoes.
But, yes, the last act admittedly falls apart. Overblown plot, self-importance, over-amped action, and horrifically bad CGI make everything in the last forty minutes or so either unpleasant or unnecessary.
For that reason, a mid-pack ranking of the film makes sense. Love the meeting in Cuba, hate the fake para-surfing, love the escape from MI6, hate the exploding jet. Love the villain and his diamond-studded compatriot, hate the stupid henchmen. This balancing act makes sense for a mid-level movie. But how did it become the Worst Bond of All for fans?