'Die' is just another common Bond

Even Oscar winner Halle Berry's role is nothing special.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
The 20th official entry in the James Bond franchise, "Die Another Day" -- a great title by the way -- is neither the best nor the worst 007 movie, just a fairly ordinary one. Truth be told, most Bond adventures have been on the fair-to-middling side since Sean Connery left the series in 1971 after "Diamonds are Forever."
By all rights, Ian Fleming's secret agent man should have been put out to pasture years ago. Yet, after Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton (so stiff that he squeaked), Pierce Brosnan's relative competence in the 007 role made it seem like the Cold War relic still had a few tricks up his impeccably tailored sleeves. If only!
Not Oscar material
"Die" has received most of its prerelease hype from the casting of last year's Best Actress Oscar winner Halle Berry as the latest in a long line of Bond babes. And while Berry is unquestionably the classiest and most overqualified 007 appendage since Kim Basinger in 1983's "Never Say Never Again," her predictably under-written role as a seductive NSA operative is nothing special.
Berry's teaming with Brosnan doesn't strike any much-needed sparks, either. Of course, Brosnan's only smoldering on-screen chemistry was with Rene Russo in 1999's non-Bond "The Thomas Crown Affair."
The script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade ("The World is Not Enough") is the usual balderdash about a megalomaniac (Toby Stephens) who runs afoul of Agent 007 while seeking global domination -- this time via a space satellite.
Casting Stephens (the real-life son of actress Maggie Smith) was the smartest thing the producers did here. Effortlessly imperious and oozing the sort of brazen self-confidence that only Old Money or royal lineage can buy, Stephens makes his Gustav Graves a remarkably dapper villain.
An old-fashioned duel between Graves and Bond at a posh fencing club is the high point of the movie. Too bad it's quickly upstaged by a tiresome procession of sometimes blatantly phony CGI effects that seem lifted from Vin Diesel's summer stinker "XXX."
A vulnerable Bond
Purvis and Wade attempt to make the formerly invincible Bond appear more human and vulnerable by opening "Die" with scenes of his capture and torture by some nasty North Koreans. Not a good idea.
Furthermore, we're asked to believe that M (Judi Dench again) would give her beloved James his walking papers after having just spent 14 hellish months in a prison camp. I suppose the idea was to turn the ace sleuth into an underdog so that audiences might have a rooting interest in his redemptive comeback, but who wants to see 007 plagued by uncertainty and doubt?
Other than pumping up the action to a sometimes ludicrous degree, director Lee Tamahori ("Along Came a Spider") does very little that's fresh, inventive or even exciting. It's hard to believe this is the same New Zealand filmmaker who made an international splash with his powerful Maori domestic drama "Once Were Warriors" back in 1995.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.