MGM's James Bond collection has become the gem of their entire home video line, and rightfully so. Each entry in the series, which now includes every film in the 007 series, boasts top-notch digital transfers and extensive in-depth DVD extras. On approaching this latest release, one can't help but note one un-007 factor: the packaging. The 2-disc DVD keepcase is secured inside a fold-out cardboard sleeve, held snug and secure with plastic tape that requires a bit of fumbling to get open. This gives you time to note the prominence of Halle Berry in all the advertising. Not to take anything away from Berry, who is poised to spin off her character into her own feature, but I wish they'd done as much for Michelle Yeoh, whose turn in TOMORROW NEVER DIES was just as ripe for a spin-off. Not that the producers don't have the same thing in mind they wanted Yeoh to make a cameo appearance in the Hong Kong sequence of DIE ANOTHER DAY.
Pierce Brosnan continues to bring his gifts to the role of James Bond, and for that we can be thankful. However, the screenwriters have let him down a bit this time. To be sure, DIE ANOTHER DAY (known during pre-production as BEYOND THE ICE) contains all the elements that have made this series so successful (no need to recount what those are, since just about everybody knows them). But the format seems to work best when it treads the line between pure escapism and the gritty atmosphere of international tensions. Here, we're asked to follow Bond too far into science fiction.
It gets off to a good start. Agent 007 has been sent on a mission into North Korea near the Joint Security Area to assassinate a Col. Moon (Will Yun Lee), who has been dealing arms to South African terrorists in exchange for diamonds. After a lot of explosions and a merry hovercraft chase, Bond seemingly succeeds in killing Moon, but is captured by his target's general father (Kenneth Tsang). After 14 months of torture by scorpions, Bond is freed in exchange for Moon's aide Zhao (Rick Yune), who bears the scars of their previous encounter: diamonds embedded in his face by an explosion.
Having cost Britain plenty, Bond is kept imprisoned by M (Judi Dench), too, but he finds the security measures lax and makes his way to a Hong Kong hotel. With the help of the Chinese government (who lost three agents to Zhao), Bond tracks Zhao to Cuba. There, Zhao is in the middle of a DNA transplant, which is interrupted when Bond and American NSA agent Jinx Johnson (Berry) bust up the place trying to kill him. All three agents escape the fireworks, but are reunited in Iceland following the diamonds, which were manufactured by flamboyant multi-billionaire Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). Graves has built an ice palace on top of a glacier, and has gathered VIPs there to introduce his secret project: a huge, satellite-bourn mirror in space he calls Icarus, which can make arctic tundra into farmland. Of course, its true purpose is as a terrible weapon, and Bond has to stop Graves' evil plan while exonerating himself by killing Zhao.
The plot is pretty good, and the action sequences terrific, but credibility is stretched into MOONRAKER territory at several key junctures. One point comes when 007 is training at a secret underground base using a shooting range built by Q (John Cleese), which uses virtual reality technology closer to a Star Trek holodeck than anything available now. Another is the ice palace itself - I know that there are frozen hotels, but the movie takes the point too far. Besides, even on a glacier you can never see the cast's breath. And then there's Bond's escape from the giant sunbeam off the edge of the glacier, which he accomplishes by fashioning a surfboard out of the bonnet of a rocket car. During this sequence Brosnan looks like Frankie Avalon "surfing" in front of rear-projected ocean. Speaking of which, did I mention 007 has an invisible car this time out?
Still, there's never really been a bad 007 movie, and this one is altogether quite good, having all the merits mentioned above, plus strong female characters and the novelty of a James Bond held under torture, then cast out by MI6 to fend for himself.
Director Lee Tamahori and producer Michael G. Wilson sit in for a feature commentrak, giving their view of the production and revealing just how much of the spectacle was invented on the fly, even on a production of this size. Brosnan himself takes commentrak 2, and in answer to constant rumors as to whether he'll continue his reign as 007, seems to thoroughly enjoy his regular job. He has a bit of trouble filling up every second of the track (he seems to be responding to questions that were edited out), but Rosamund Pike comes in when her character is introduced to help out (via editing), revealing a delightful little starstruck stutter. A third form of annotation appears in a "pop-up" style feature that provides a ton of relevant trivia, along with accompanying behind-the-scenes and interview footage.
You might consider this much coverage of a film to be plenty, but there's a whole other disc full of extras here, starting with a handful of documentary featurettes that cover different scenes and aspects of the film in more detail. There's a section comparing storyboards to the finished film, another detailing various gadgets from the film, an image gallery, and a collection of trailers, music videos, games, and other promotional clips.
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