Die Another Day on DVD

Pierce Brosnan is back as James Bond in what turns out to be a pleasant surprise after years of Bond films that were increasingly over the top.

In fact, we think Die Another Day is the best Bond film since “The Living Daylights.”

One of the reasons the Bond franchise has been losing its steam has been that the producers haven’t known when to stop. We don’t mean that they should have stopped making Bond films (Heavens, no! Just make ‘em great!). Rather, we’re talking about the straining of audiences' credulity they seem to have gotten sucked into.

For example, the Big Stunt that usually kicks off a Bond film. Take “GoldenEye” as an example: a terrific opening scene where Bond (Brosnan, in his first outing) battles overwhelming odds and then manages a thrilling escape from deep in enemy territory. In this case, after he fights his way onto a small airplane and is ready to take off he’s tossed from the plane, which takes off unmanned and starts nosing toward the far distant ground. Bond drives off the cliff edge on a motorcycle and free falls back onto the plane and then wrestles it back into flight.

Sorry. That’s where our disbelief refused to be suspended. It would have been more believable - and just as exciting - if he’d merely fought his way onto the plane like he did, then took off and flew away, rather than beating us over the head with spectacular but superfluous stunts that, rather than thrilling us, ended up making us go “Yeah, right. Give us a break!”

This is but one example from far too many in Bond films of past years. And there are a couple of examples in Die Another Day, but they aren’t as blatant and they don’t leave as bad a taste in our mouths. This time, for instance, we have the invisible car that’s not only not credible, but which removes too many opportunities for us to ogle lustily at the new Aston Martin.

Oh, yeah. There’s another good thing about Die Another Day: as much as we like BMW’s, Bond belongs in a British car – especially an Aston Martin – and now he is again. Hooray!

There’s also a Star-Trek holodeck-like simulation thingy we could have done without, as well as a disintegrating Antonov Condor that takes far too long to disintegrate to be believable.

Then there's Madonna’s theme song: easily the worst Bond theme song ever.

Other than that – this is a terrific Bond adventure! And a real change of pace.

The changes start right at the beginning where, instead of escaping in a most dramatic manner, Bond is captured and thrown into a North Korean prison. Then, over the opening credits (which, other than Madonna’s “song”, are as terrific as usual), we see him tortured unmercifully by that country’s communist thugs and when we rejoin the movie many months have passed and a beaten, bruised and battered Bond (bearded and dirty) is released as part of a prisoner exchange. But when he gets back to civilization, he discovers that he’s assumed to have betrayed his cause under torture and is therefore no longer of any use to Mi6. He’s tossed aside like a dirty dishrag.

But that would make a rather short and depressing Bond movie, and we know Bond has been underestimated. Besides, he has some personal business to finish and takes off after the guys who done him wrong, who betrayed him and turned his world upside down in such dramatic fashion.

We won’t spoil this entertaining romp for you by giving it all away. Watch the movie!

The supporting cast includes Halle Berry as, well, Felix Leiter – though it takes a while for us to discover that – Rick Yune and Toby Stephens as the Big Bad Guys, and Rosamund Pike as, well, you’ll have to keep guessing to see who she works for. And of course we have Judi Dench as M and John Cleese in his first solo outing as Q (and he fits Desmond Llewellyn’s shoes perfectly).

We even get a terrific car chase between Bond’s Aston Martin, armed to the teeth, and a Jaguar XK8 that’s every bit its match (except esthetically). And some of Bond’s womanizing even has a nifty “new millennium” twist to it.

The North Korean focus of the film caused quite a bit of controversy but it’s actually bang on and gives the film added realism, considering the state of world events as it is.

Suffice it to say that if you’ve held off on seeing Die Another Day because you think Bond has lost his steam, give it a chance.

MGM has pulled out all the stops on the DVD, too. It’s presented in a deluxe 2 disc set that offers a terrific video representation of the film and a second disc of extras.

The movie is presented in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compatible, and the video quality is excellent, with rich colors and sharp detail. Unfortunately, MGM has also succumbed to that annoying trend of offering a Pan&Scan version under separate cover. We recommend you avoid that one except as a rental unless you want to be stuck with a square picture when you buy a widescreen TV.

Audio offers the welcome choice between Dolby Digital 5.1 EX surround and dts ES and the quality is also very good, though we think they may have jacked up the volume on the action sequences and this had us searching for the volume control a few times as we tried to equalize the sound.

Extras on disc one include two audio commentaries, one with director Lee Tamahori and producer Michael G. Wilson and the other with stars Pierce Brosnan and Rosamund Pike. There’s also a trivia track, some DVD ROM features, and a promo for the Bond series DVD boxed sets.

Disc two is full of neat stuff, including a plethora of documentaries and featurettes. We particularly enjoyed the one on the car chase. You also get “scene evolutffects of any – which is fine, except that sometimes they’re pretty obvious), a featurette on the gadgetry, a photo gallery, trailers and TV spots and, if you’re really desperate, Madonna’s theme song's music video.

Most of the stuff is presented in anamorphic widescreen too, which is nice. But one of the extras, a trailer for the Electronic Arts game 007 Nightfire, wouldn't play on our DVD player, though it worked fine on our PC.

Die Another Day, from MGM Home Video
132 min. anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1, 16x9 TV compatible) / Pan&Scan (sold separately), Dolby Digital EX and dts ES 5.1 surround
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rosamund Pike, Rick Yune,
Produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli
Written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, directed by Lee Tamahori

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