Die Another Day: B

One of my favorite things about critics is that they lower my expectations.

On going into Die Another Day (or James Bond XX or maybe 007 20) I had a sick feeling that what I had been hearing might be right - that the James Bond series wasn't novel anymore and that he wouldn't be able to pull off the same basic plot with all the same basic rules for the twentieth time and still seem fresh.

The "rules" of Bond films are undoubtedly a curse as well as a blessing to production. How can a movie series consist of 20 titles each of which the main character must say verbatim, "Bond, James Bond" and "Shaken, not stirred" as well as the dozens of double-entendres with unexplained willing women? How can each movie also have the obligatory high-action opening sequence, the sensually silhouetted opening credit sequence, at least a pair of "Bond girls" bedded by the hero, the same cool car, a supervillain's secret lair, a gadget scene with Q, the stern pep-talk with M and a villain who always explains his plans of world domination to Bond before allowing the hero to escape and who must subsequently face Bond in a climactic battle in extreme circumstances?

Of course the good thing about all these rules is that they are so beloved. They must be obeyed or the charm of the Bond film would be lost. People go to see all that stuff happen- they just don't know the means by which it will all be executed.

Contrary to much critical opinion, I found the means quite interesting. The creators know that while they must obey the rules, what really separates Bond films from each other are the elements not already in the Bond template. Divergence from the norm is evidenced near the beginning of the movie when 007 actually rebels from Her Majesty's Secret Service and goes vigilante after the villain (Ok, ok, it was done in License to Kill, but at least it doesn't happen in every Bond movie). A bigger divergence is the use of an opening credit sequence that actually (*omigosh*) propels the plot.

The plot, if you need to know it, involves this villain guy named Gustav Graves (Tobey Stephens), who kind of seems like a menacing British Conan O'Brien. Anyway, Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan, did I forget to mention that?) senses that this villain guy is somehow related to the renegade North Koreans that put Bond away at the beginning of the movie AND behind some illegal diamond trading in Africa AND that his super-powered satellite may actually be a weapon of MASS DESTRUCTION rather than just a means to shine sunlight on darkened areas of the world (Ok, ok, that kind of sounds like the plot to Diamonds are Forever, but hey, it's an homage). The action takes Bond to Hong Kong, Cuba, London, Iceland and North Korea. There's also another villain with diamonds stuck in his face, which looks pretty cool.

The Bond girls are played by Halle Berry and Rosamund Pike. Berry plays Jinx, a sassy fireball tribute to Foxxy Cleopatra. Bond meets her randomly as a beach babe in Cuba, but she coincidently turns out to be after the same guy he's after. Berry does fine, but I think all her praise and her prospect at a movie franchise based on Jinx is quite a bit premature. Right now it's really cool to adore Halle Berry, but I'm sure it will wear off kind of like when everybody thought the Yoda light saber scene was cool in Attack of the Clones. Anyway Berry does have a lot of action appeal, although in a couple of scenes she seemed to be leisurely jogging while chasing the villain rather than in a full sprint as if the fate of the world depended on it. Her banter with Bond is quite suggestively delightful. The writers pulled no stops in the amount of double entendre'd dialogue (a good Bond rule to abide by).

Pike is supposed to play the opposite of Berry. Her character is knows as Miranda Frost, the supposedly innocent ice queen publicist of Gustav Graves. Early on, the film establishes her as innocent, yet impossible to seduce. Will Bond have his way with her? I won't give anything away, but I will say that some Bond rules are definitely made to be obeyed. Despite her cold demeanor (Frost - get it? It's British symbolism for all us dumb Americans), Pike's contrast to Berry helps balance the film on the estrogen front. Like Berry, she's also pretty cute.

New Zealander Lee Tamahori did the directing. There are just enough visual quirks to make it interesting. The opening sequence is filmed duskly blue as the stealthy Bond begins sneaking around, but then brightens up when he starts kicking butt. The makers utilize a subtle slow-motion matrix-like pan in the middle of action sequences. It's not nearly as annoying as straightforward slow-motion.

My biggest complaint is that while most of the action is pretty fluid, some events are tremendously flawed onscreen. The part where bond uses a makeshift surfboard and parachute to ride a tidal wave should have been edited out when the filmmakers saw how cartoonish it looked.

Oh yeah, apparently since this year is the 40th anniversary of the James Bond franchise, the filmmakers tipped their hats to each of the previous 19 films. Watch carefully if you've seen many of the other Bond films.