Die Another Day

DIE ANOTHER DAY

Rating: C

An iceberg adrift.

You can often tell how good a James Bond film is going to be just from the opening theme song. I'm not sure why this is, other than maybe a well-crafted theme indicates the filmmakers and associated creative talent took the time to get things right all around. Or maybe it's indicative that the director wasn't just going through the motions for the paycheck, and actually was concerned with the quality of the product. Thinking back, most of the landmark Bond films - e.g., Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me - had great theme songs. (Okay, so GoldenEye's was just so-so, but the general trend still holds.) Now comes Die Another Day, with Madonna contributing an opening techno-crap number which is nothing short of hideous, and about as out of place as fake wood paneling on an Aston Martin. I have an uneasy suspicion the whole thing was meant as a joke which I simply didn't get.

From such an ignominious beginning, director Lee Tamahori struggles for the remainder of the reels to get the movie airborne. Tamahori has some good films to his credit, but this one would be better left off his resumé, if you get my drift. The plot ambles listlessly from one familiar action scene to another, without ever engaging us. The villains are merely cardboard retreads from past mediocre 007 films, and the dialogue between Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry may be full of double-entendres, but it's sorely lacking in any kind of passion or chemistry. Even the gadgetry falls a bit flat; I guess we all figured sooner or later Q would come up with a car that's invisible, but we also knew it would mark the point where the gadgetry got to be a little bit too ridiculous. (Actually, I thought there'd be a flying car in there before this, a la Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and all. Maybe next movie... ) To be fair, there've been so many Jimmy Bond films that the struggle to invent interesting new villains and conceive new engaging action sequences is a tough one for any filmmaker. That's why, when a GoldenEye comes along rocking on all cylinders, it's a remarkable achievement. Unfortunately, waiting for the occasional GoldenEye means we have to sit through a plethora of Die Another Days.

The whole enterprise radiates vibes of being haphazardly thrown together. Not content with bollixing up the opening song, Madonna also has to appear in the movie, projecting all the screen presence of an embalmed corpse. The fact her (mercifully brief) scenes ended up in the film instead of strewn about the editing room floor is a testament that the filmmakers were more concerned with boosting record sales than they were with making a good movie. Later, Bond visits villain Toby Stephens' "Ice Palace," a lair modeled after the Sydney Opera House and actually constructed of ice. This may seem like a brilliant concept in a story meeting at one in the morning, but I have to question how comfortable such a domicile would actually be for warm-blooded animals. I assume they'd want heat in this place, which would make for some tension filled moments when the timbers started melting, no? The other problem is that all the furniture, including tables and beds, is made out of clear plastic in keeping with the whole ice palace theme (apparently, constructing the beds out of ice sounded too ridiculous even at one in the morning). It's all painfully cheesy, when it's supposed to be luxurious. Maybe another joke I didn't get.

The plot is equally half-baked. There's this secret space weapon called "Solaris," which could pass for GoldenEye's twin brother. For some reason, Stephens feels it necessary to have the controls for Solaris integrated into a mechanical body suit, for no detectable purpose other than it looks cool and the writers were screamingly desperate for ideas. This suit gives off funny looking electrical discharge/lightning bolt thingies, which have nothing to do with Solaris nor anything else in the movie. Then there's a subplot about a process which surgically alters one's appearance and then requires periodic sessions under a Phantom of the Opera mask stuffed with fiber optic cables. Stephens undergoes the procedure, but there's never any plot payoff as a result, other than Brosnan not recognizing him at first. If it had turned out someone Bond had come to trust was the villain, the concept might have had some impact, but Bond doesn't trust the new incarnation from the moment he meets him. So what's the point? Did I mention things seem to have been haphazardly thrown together here?

The film finally manages to arouse some interest in the late going, when Brosnan in his high-tech Aston Martin duels with the baddie in a similarly decked out Jag-you-war. As the two vehicles slide around on the ice and exchange various flavors of artillery fire, one can sense a feeling of fun in the proceedings which thus far had been sorely lacking. Of course, if the Japanese automakers ever decide to enter the rockets-from-the-exhaust-pipe car market, next time around Bond and his counterparts will probably find themselves battling in Lexuses and Infinitis. Either that or risk getting their asses kicked.