Check out these reviews of DAD...

I found these reviews to be pretty harsh (well, the first reviewer was pretty harsh while missing the point, whereas the second one is a little more accurate and seems to get the point a little better), but I thought I'd share them to give some of you an idea of what a lot of the critical reaction to DAD is.

This one's from Duncan Shepherd who does reviews for San Diego's Reader magazine/newspaper:

"To relegate James Bond to the Peanut Gallery might seem a bit harsh. Surely that sportscar-driving, martini-swigging, baccarat-playing, lady- killing, smart-mouthing fantasy figure belongs properly among the adolescents. I say no. Not any more. The early dedication of the series to topping itself on each and every outing sent it swiftly over the top. And irretrievably into Toonville. Those of us who thought the character ought to have been put out to pasture somewhere during the Roger Moore regime have little recourse short of laryngitis. Is it asking too much of today's filmmakers -- even if they must turn, as before, to books -- that they come up with a spy tailored to our own times?

On second thoughts, maybe Agent 007 is exactly that, insofar as these are times of impoverished imagination, endless recycling, rigid formularizing, and fear of the unknown. Even so, one feels obliged to point out that it is (ahem) four decades since the man made his debut on screen, never mind another decade since his debut on the page: he must, as a film entity alone, be into his seventies by now. However you calculate it, he can ill afford to spend fourteen months in a North Korean prison, coming out afterwards looking like Robinson Crusoe, as he does at the beginning of Die Another Day, the twentieth entry in the series, give or take a Casino Royale or a Never Say Never Again. If the opening bout of incarceration, torture, and disgrace ("Double-0 status rescinded") is meant to provide a jolt, it would have been advisable not to precede it with one of those preposterously overblown pre-credits sequences, or to accompany it with techno-Madonna all through the actual credits. The film is wrecked before it can get off the ground.

I confess to having felt there was cause for hope in the enlistment of a new director, Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Mulholland Falls, The Edge, Along Came a Spider), a cut above most of the recent helmsmen. Then again, I felt the same, if not more so, about Michael Apted before the last one, The World Is Not Enough. Bond proves again to be director-proof. In fairness, the second-banana villain's getaway by helicopter from an islet off Cuba is excitingly staged, and there's a vigorous swordfight in the Flynn-Rathbone tradition between Bond (who never needs practice to stay in trim) and the top banana. But then there's the laser-ray satellite, the invisible automobile, the wind-surfing on a tidal wave, the car chase through the melting Ice Palace, the cosmetic conversion of Asian to Caucasian, and so on. When will I reach the point where I no longer feel the need even to bother with the latest Bond film? Or better: when will I realize I am long past that point? Make no mistake. I don't want Bond to adjust and adapt; I don't want him brought up to date; I don't want him put on equal footing with a Kick-*** Chick (currently, Halle Berry); I don't want him schooled by John Woo; I don't want him toughened or softened, darkened or deepened; I don't want him recast with Russell Crowe or Colin Farrell. I want him retired."

Ouch.

How about this one from AP's Christy Lemire:

"Perhaps it's time to say goodbye to Mr. Bond.

Not that there's anything wrong with Pierce Brosnan. After four films as James Bond, the role fits him like a perfectly tailored tuxedo.

But to keep up with younger, hipper imitations, "Die Another Day" ---- the 20th installation of the spy franchise ---- is about crashes rather than character development, explosions over exposition.

The double-entendres clang like feeble frat-party flirtations. And references to gadgets and plot lines from Bond films past, intended as a loving homage upon the series' 40th anniversary, only make us long to be shaken and stirred as we were watching the Sean Connery films from the 1960s.

As the latest Bond girl, an American agent named Jinx, Halle Berry emerges gloriously from the ocean, just as Ursula Andress did in the first movie, "Dr. No." (She even wears a bikini similar to Andress' with a knife sheath on her hip.)

Jinx is tied down and tortured with a laser, like Connery's Bond was in "Goldfinger." Later, she endures a claustrophobic near-drowning, similar to Denise Richards' fate in "The World Is Not Enough."

And the plot has glimmers of "Diamonds Are Forever," with a villain stocking up on diamonds to pay for a deadly laser satellite.

By now, it would be hard for a new Bond film not to refer to an earlier one; the franchise has been parodied (in the "Austin Powers" movies) and reinvigorated (in the summer blockbuster "XXX") so many times, there's nothing original left.

Here, when Bond snowboards down a mountain trying to escape an avalanche, it's reminiscent of a stunt Vin Diesel pulled in "XXX" ---- itself a rip-off of Roger Moore's daring skiing chase in "The Spy Who Loved Me."

That avalanche scene, by the way, brings us to another problem with this newfangled Bond: It relies too heavily on fake-looking computer generated effects.

The best scene in the movie features a beautifully choreographed fencing duel between Bond and Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens, Maggie Smith's son), a pretty-boy adventurer and megalomaniac who announces from his frozen palace in Iceland that he's created a second sun, which he calls Icarus.

Based on that name, you know something has to fly too close to the device and burn its wings. That something would be a jumbo jet, which Jinx tries to prevent from crashing ---- when she's not engaged in a duel of her own with Graves' right-hand woman, Miranda Frost (a Grace Kellyesque newcomer, Rosamund Pike), while Bond and Graves duke it out in another section of the plane.

OK, you have to walk into a James Bond movie expecting a certain level of improbability ---- he's never functioned in reality, and that's much of the allure. But director Lee Tamahori's action sequences are bombastic in the beginning and grow increasingly ridiculous, to the point where you're laughing out loud instead of oohing and aahing.

And just when you think that's the climax, the movie has to go back to North Korea, where Bond was imprisoned in the beginning, to blow up all the remaining land mines.

Beavis and Butt-head would have loved this movie. Explosions! Chicks! Heh, heh-heh.

Who wouldn't get excited over Berry, though? She's strong and sexy, a great match for the dashing Brosnan ---- so much so, that MGM already is planning a film based on her character, which has never happened before with a Bond girl. She's more than that, though; she's his partner and every bit his equal.

The movie also gives Madonna the chance to acquit herself from the disastrous "Swept Away." She performs the electronica-heavy theme song, and makes an unbilled cameo as a fencing instructor; dressed in a black leather corset left over from her "Erotica" days, she quips to Bond, "I see you handle your weapon well."

At least Madonna will appear in one successful movie this year ---- for no matter what critics say, Bond will survive another day at the box office."

I'm seeing more and more critics calling for an end to Mr Bond. Are they working for SPECTRE? ("Goodbye Mr Bond.")

I tend to agree with Ms Lemire more than Mr Shepherd in their reviews (I hardly EVER agree with Duncan Shepherd he's a blowhard, if you'll pardon the expression).

What I don't agree with at all is the calling for an end to the Bond films. Why end them? The producers can still come up with a Bond film that pleases a large majority of Bond fans (and a good number of "non-Bond fans.")

DAD was ALMOST that movie. Drop some of the ridiculous action sequences at the Ice Palace, and don't have that plane go through that ray and still remain aloft as long as it did, and don't rely so much on CGI (unless it's REALLY well done) and you've pretty much got that movie.

#1 B5Erik2

#2 B5Erik2

#3 B5Erik2

#4 JimmyBond