Die Another Day (2002)

Directed by Lee Tamahori. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike, Rick Yune, Judi Dench, Michael Madsen, Kenneth Tsang, Emilio Echevarría, John Cleese, Michael Gorevoy, Colin Salmon, Samantha Bond, Will Yun Lee, Ho Yi. [PG-13]

It was probably prudent that the first James Bond film set in a post-9/11 landscape ignored all real-world implications of said event and delivered another outlandish fantasy scenario where Bond grapples with a power-mad billionaire (Stephens) whose appearance has been altered by experimental gene therapy, and his diamond-faced henchman (Yune). But why did it have to be so stupefyingly overcooked, with its ice palaces and invisible cars and inexcusably dodgy CGI, packaged as a loud, leaden commercial product without a single whiff of wit or exhilaration? Scene-for-scene, decision-for-decision, the series had hit lower valleys before than anything found here, but there had always been some sort of saving grace to make those past episodes more tolerable; here, the best that can be mustered is declaring that the Bond girls aren’t ignominious (Berry’s NSA agent Jinx even proves capable in a crisis, but she has no chemistry with Brosnan, and is saddled with dialogue that’s about 70% thudding quips, puns and innuendo) and Cleese makes a welcome appearance. Since the series reached official entry #20 on its 40th anniversary, the film is peppered with homages to past adventures, but only a couple of them are worth more than a shrug (such as an in-joke to fans in regard to the book that Bond is flipping through in Cuba). Madonna sings the glitchy (and polarizing) title tune, and shows up in a cameo as a fencing instructor. Film debut for Pike as the aptly-named Miranda Frost.

39/100