I once did a posting on Absolutely James Bond on twenty reasons why DAD stinks like an old mans jockstrap. It got 150 replies before the mods shut it off.
Out of interest, how soon was this after the release of the film?
CBn Reviews 'Die Another Day'
Started by
Qwerty
, Dec 27 2006 07:50 PM
38 replies to this topic
#31
Safari Suit
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Posted 14 July 2008 - 05:38 PM
Out of interest, how soon was this after the release of the film?
#32
broadshoulder
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Posted 14 July 2008 - 07:02 PM
About five years after release if memory serves me correctly. But on seeing the film in December 2002 we had to retire to the pub straight afterwards for a double-whisky to recover from the shock
DAD is one of the few films where you can list the good points on one hand instead of the bad.
DAD is one of the few films where you can list the good points on one hand instead of the bad.
#33
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Posted 15 July 2008 - 03:58 AM
About five years after release if memory serves me correctly. But on seeing the film in December 2002 we had to retire to the pub straight afterwards for a double-whisky to recover from the shock
DAD is one of the few films where you can list the good points on one hand instead of the bad.
There is a wonderful thread started by zencat, but with others proclaiming DAD the greatest Bond movie ever (almost), from just after its release. Well worth reading, because it shows that the movie was popular with some people at the time, and I must say I really enjoyed the first hour myself.
#34
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Posted 15 July 2008 - 05:28 AM
About five years after release if memory serves me correctly. But on seeing the film in December 2002 we had to retire to the pub straight afterwards for a double-whisky to recover from the shock
DAD is one of the few films where you can list the good points on one hand instead of the bad.
There is a wonderful thread started by zencat, but with others proclaiming DAD the greatest Bond movie ever (almost), from just after its release. Well worth reading, because it shows that the movie was popular with some people at the time, and I must say I really enjoyed the first hour myself.
Popular with people at the time. Perhaps some people did like it? Particularly those brought up with Pierce as their Bond.
Two weeks after release Graham from The James Bond British Fan Club called it "the worst one of the 21 films".
So it wasnt raputurously received at the time. Far from it.
#35
Qwerty
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Posted 19 December 2008 - 04:04 AM
Bumping this one up.
#36
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Posted 19 December 2008 - 04:52 AM
About five years after release if memory serves me correctly. But on seeing the film in December 2002 we had to retire to the pub straight afterwards for a double-whisky to recover from the shock
DAD is one of the few films where you can list the good points on one hand instead of the bad.
There is a wonderful thread started by zencat, but with others proclaiming DAD the greatest Bond movie ever (almost), from just after its release. Well worth reading, because it shows that the movie was popular with some people at the time, and I must say I really enjoyed the first hour myself.
Popular with people at the time. Perhaps some people did like it? Particularly those brought up with Pierce as their Bond.
Two weeks after release Graham from The James Bond British Fan Club called it "the worst one of the 21 films".
So it wasnt raputurously received at the time. Far from it.
i wouldn't say that this was the worst of the Bonds - the worst of Brosnan's yes - but Moore made a lot of stinkers worst than this one - and Never Say Never Again and Diamonds Forever are as bad if not worse than this one.
#37
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Posted 19 December 2008 - 05:27 PM
One of my least favorite Bonds, with such scenes as the aweful one with Miss Moneypenny. Still, there are enough scenes that I enjoyed, such as the sword fight, to give the film a low passing grade og 6/10.
#38
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Posted 21 January 2010 - 11:14 AM
In 2008 I watched all the Bond movies and wrote a series of reviews for another site. The aim was to watch them in order in the run up to the premiere of QOS. I succeeded and the reviews were well received.
However, subsequently, I have re-read my reviews and re-watched a number of the movies (the BFI had a whole 007 season earlier this year and I saw quite a few on the big screen again!).
This is my updated review for Die Another Day.
DIE ANOTHER DAY
REVISED REVIEW 20/1/10
James Bond movies have often had a predilection for the preposterous, but this was always tethered to the line that everything you see has been or could be achieved. In the world today we are sending seventy year olds into space, atomic weapons do disappear, satellite technology helps produce computer programmed weaponry, stealth planes have been developed; these examples fit in with the more outlandish elements of previous Bond films. There are a few rare exceptions to the rule, You Only Live Twice & Moonraker contain a lot of them, but in Die Another Day there is an invisible car – and I cannot accept it. Not because I can’t see it happening (ha!ha!) but because the execution of the car’s invisibility is abysmal. And so is the remainder of this extremely thoughtless movie.
The premise of Die Another Day isn’t bad, but the writers pack in a tremendous amount of plot for a slight story. The beauty of Ian Fleming’s novels was the simplicity of the tale, which he expanded with horrific action. Purvis and Wade, who return from the equally tedious The World Is Not Enough, have not learnt this lesson and they are not helped by a director in Lee Tamahori who appears unfamiliar with how to make a decent Bond picture. He blinds and deafens us with bangs, crashes and explosions but this is no substitute for decent content. I could go on about the special effects, the overuse of computer images, the bland almost pale photography, the jump cut editing and the slow motion, but I won’t. Die Another Day is just a mess from start to finish.
The film’s teaser is another twelve minute chase scene, dull to the extreme, during which Bond wreaks so much havoc you wonder if World War Three hasn’t broken out already. The next three minutes are the most interesting of the film as Daniel Klienman’s fine title design contains scenes of Bond’s torture in a Korean prison. Madonna’s funky stop-start song fits the sequence well.
Bond ends up looking like Robinson Crusoe, but he soon smartens up once he escapes. He does this by stopping his own heart. I always knew Bond was a talented agent, but sending himself into a coma is quite a feat. He should have patented the trick; it might have helped poor old Gustav Graves, a villain who suffers permanent insomnia. Graves is actually a genetically altered Korean general, but Toby Stephens pitiful interpretation borders on the archetypical spoilt brat. It is neither funny nor intelligent. He’s aided by an equally pointless group of henchman, one of whom is called Mr Kil, but he can’t, and another whose face is conspicuously covered in diamonds, which you think he’d have removed, after all they are hardly a disabling injury.
Not even the appearance of the gorgeous Halle Berry can spice up this sour concoction. She’s an American agent called Jinx and we first see her impersonating Ursula Andress. It’s one of many throw backs to the previous nineteen films. When she meets Bond there is supposed to be sexual tension, but it’s unbearably obvious and borders on the indecent. We’ve never seen Bond make love before; we do this time and it’s a disconcerting scene, more Basic Instinct than Dr No. It lacks the good natured humour of earlier Bond couplings.
That Halle Berry is out acted by Rosamunde Pike as the deliciously named Miranda Frost is not a surprise. Pike is given the meatiest role and the best lines. The best scenes however belong to Brosnan and Emilio Echevarria’s Raul, a Cuban sleeper agent who runs a cigar factory. Their three brief slots recall some of Fleming’s best writing, like From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty’s and You Only Live Twice, as they both reflect on the world and how they fit into it. There’s a neat touch when Brosnan picks up a book called “Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies” by James Bond, but the tribute is lost to many as we don’t see the author’s name.
There’s nothing else of interest to write about, suffice to say David Arnold does a quality job with the music, sampling previous themes, but you have a hard time hearing them under the noisy sound track. I don’t understand what’s happening here. James Bond has become as invisible as his car and no one much seems to care.
RATING 3 from 10
However, subsequently, I have re-read my reviews and re-watched a number of the movies (the BFI had a whole 007 season earlier this year and I saw quite a few on the big screen again!).
This is my updated review for Die Another Day.
DIE ANOTHER DAY
REVISED REVIEW 20/1/10
James Bond movies have often had a predilection for the preposterous, but this was always tethered to the line that everything you see has been or could be achieved. In the world today we are sending seventy year olds into space, atomic weapons do disappear, satellite technology helps produce computer programmed weaponry, stealth planes have been developed; these examples fit in with the more outlandish elements of previous Bond films. There are a few rare exceptions to the rule, You Only Live Twice & Moonraker contain a lot of them, but in Die Another Day there is an invisible car – and I cannot accept it. Not because I can’t see it happening (ha!ha!) but because the execution of the car’s invisibility is abysmal. And so is the remainder of this extremely thoughtless movie.
The premise of Die Another Day isn’t bad, but the writers pack in a tremendous amount of plot for a slight story. The beauty of Ian Fleming’s novels was the simplicity of the tale, which he expanded with horrific action. Purvis and Wade, who return from the equally tedious The World Is Not Enough, have not learnt this lesson and they are not helped by a director in Lee Tamahori who appears unfamiliar with how to make a decent Bond picture. He blinds and deafens us with bangs, crashes and explosions but this is no substitute for decent content. I could go on about the special effects, the overuse of computer images, the bland almost pale photography, the jump cut editing and the slow motion, but I won’t. Die Another Day is just a mess from start to finish.
The film’s teaser is another twelve minute chase scene, dull to the extreme, during which Bond wreaks so much havoc you wonder if World War Three hasn’t broken out already. The next three minutes are the most interesting of the film as Daniel Klienman’s fine title design contains scenes of Bond’s torture in a Korean prison. Madonna’s funky stop-start song fits the sequence well.
Bond ends up looking like Robinson Crusoe, but he soon smartens up once he escapes. He does this by stopping his own heart. I always knew Bond was a talented agent, but sending himself into a coma is quite a feat. He should have patented the trick; it might have helped poor old Gustav Graves, a villain who suffers permanent insomnia. Graves is actually a genetically altered Korean general, but Toby Stephens pitiful interpretation borders on the archetypical spoilt brat. It is neither funny nor intelligent. He’s aided by an equally pointless group of henchman, one of whom is called Mr Kil, but he can’t, and another whose face is conspicuously covered in diamonds, which you think he’d have removed, after all they are hardly a disabling injury.
Not even the appearance of the gorgeous Halle Berry can spice up this sour concoction. She’s an American agent called Jinx and we first see her impersonating Ursula Andress. It’s one of many throw backs to the previous nineteen films. When she meets Bond there is supposed to be sexual tension, but it’s unbearably obvious and borders on the indecent. We’ve never seen Bond make love before; we do this time and it’s a disconcerting scene, more Basic Instinct than Dr No. It lacks the good natured humour of earlier Bond couplings.
That Halle Berry is out acted by Rosamunde Pike as the deliciously named Miranda Frost is not a surprise. Pike is given the meatiest role and the best lines. The best scenes however belong to Brosnan and Emilio Echevarria’s Raul, a Cuban sleeper agent who runs a cigar factory. Their three brief slots recall some of Fleming’s best writing, like From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty’s and You Only Live Twice, as they both reflect on the world and how they fit into it. There’s a neat touch when Brosnan picks up a book called “Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies” by James Bond, but the tribute is lost to many as we don’t see the author’s name.
There’s nothing else of interest to write about, suffice to say David Arnold does a quality job with the music, sampling previous themes, but you have a hard time hearing them under the noisy sound track. I don’t understand what’s happening here. James Bond has become as invisible as his car and no one much seems to care.
RATING 3 from 10
#39
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Posted 22 January 2010 - 03:08 AM
I used to place You Only Live Twice right at the top of my favorites list, until I read a review which described it as 'a gaudy but effective spectacle.' Then I thought, if a professional critic thinks that, then it must be so. It took years for my own opinion to reassert itself.
I never read a negative review of Moonraker, but I decided for myself (eventually) that it was overproduced bullocks; more of a self-parody - like some episodes of the X Files and CSI - than a real James Bond movie.
I haven't read a review yet that ranks A View to a Kill as low as I do. Some who saw it first remember it fondly, and I can respect that - Diamonds are Forever was my first, and I still rank it highly as a personal favorite.
But I liked Die Another Day, and all I read about it is trash-talk from amateur critics. I will not be swayed. I am a proud defender of TB, DAF, LALD, TMWTGG, OP and TND as well. I used to defend OHMSS too, but that doesn't seem to be necessary any more, as many seemed to have belatedly realized its virtues. Perhaps some day others will join me in regarding DAD as Brosnan's swan song, rather than as a guilty pleasure.
I never read a negative review of Moonraker, but I decided for myself (eventually) that it was overproduced bullocks; more of a self-parody - like some episodes of the X Files and CSI - than a real James Bond movie.
I haven't read a review yet that ranks A View to a Kill as low as I do. Some who saw it first remember it fondly, and I can respect that - Diamonds are Forever was my first, and I still rank it highly as a personal favorite.
But I liked Die Another Day, and all I read about it is trash-talk from amateur critics. I will not be swayed. I am a proud defender of TB, DAF, LALD, TMWTGG, OP and TND as well. I used to defend OHMSS too, but that doesn't seem to be necessary any more, as many seemed to have belatedly realized its virtues. Perhaps some day others will join me in regarding DAD as Brosnan's swan song, rather than as a guilty pleasure.