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Agreed. The first 30 mins is certainly the best part of the film. But it’s not perfect at all....it’s still very average.
But still, I recognize points made above that DAD was a big success at the time. I fully expected and looked forward to EON reworking Casino Royale to fit Brosnan for Bond later in his career. [A bad idea, in retrospect. Counterproductive.]
At the time Brosnan did some of the salary play that Roger Moore was famous for. There was also Brosnan's side action in the press mentioning Tarantino and other items. Some negatives toward the franchise itself.
Pierce Brosnan was ready for more missions but overplayed his hand at the same time the producers finally got the rights to film Casino Royale. They would have easily moved forward with him, but at the same time events conspired against that.
So 9/11 just piled on. And yes the franchise reacted to Bourne and Batman for the path, still that's not really what directed the course taken.
and moviegoers sensibilities were changing as well.. while Bond films were certainly making bank, i'm sure MGW and BB recognized that the landscape was in flux, and would another spectacle like DAD be accepted, and is that the best course of action for the franchise at the time? (and i use the term spectacle loosely lol).. because even though the movie still made money - the most of the Brosnan era films i believe - critical reception to it was pretty split down the middle.. and this was the 3rd Brosnan Bond film in a row that have split the critics.. so financially, the films were still doing well, but i think they saw it was time to creatively go in a different direction.
My experience expects critics railing against Bond films since the 60s is a part of Western Culture. As celebrated in Mad Magazine and other media.
Casino Royale was the unexpected gamechanger.
The thought that Craig was a year older than I am right now when he did Casino Royale in 2006 is just mind blowing for some reason.. Lol
Exactly
It’s possible, I don’t think we’ve ever really heard much about how Craig feels about his predecessor’s films. I vaguely remember him talking about FRWL being his favorite of the old films.
Worth noting he turned down CR initially, but when he was offered again he was given a look at the script and that’s what ultimately won him over. Perhaps he had seen DAD back when it came out, and when turning down CR the first time he probably assumed it would be like DAD?
Hard to say.
Here’s one from Charlie Higson, author of the ‘Young Bond’ books: How much of Fleming’s Bond is there in Craig’s Bond?
‘I hope a lot, but it’s subliminal. It’s about reading the books. What I wanted to do with “Quantum of Solace” – and what Marc wanted to do – was to draw on Fleming’s obsession with detail. He has two pages to describe making scrambled egg. Marc wanted to turn that into cinematic detail, so that just looking at the frame is sumptuous.‘Also, there’s a darkness in the book “Casino Royale”, there’s a fight in there. Here’s a man who’s incredibly reluctant to do what he does, which I think applied to Fleming too. He’d always have preferred to be at [his Jamaican villa] Goldeneye writing and taking gin fizzes at eleven o’clock in the morning. Wouldn’t we all?’
He also strongly implies that Live And Let Die is his favourite Bond, on account of it being the first film he saw at the cinema with his dad.
That pretty much sums it up. The only thing you missed was the 9/11 factor too, which Babs has sated on the record as another reason to change. The world suddenly became a lot more serious post 9/11, and she didn't feel comfortable continuing down the path of another Austin Powers piss-take like the DAD travesty was.
The 'when you were away the world changed' line (or whatever it is) was a response to 9/11, I guess? Obviously they wanted to reflect that and the ensuing 'war of terror' more directly in CR.
It's also amusing to remember that Tamahori would go and direct a xXx sequel.
That's true. It wouldn't work for the same reasons Connery wasn't chosen for the role of Kincaid.
*first 30 milliseconds*
Do we believe that then?
Ummmm, Well, I suppose we can't say 100%.
I enjoyed the MGM logo at the beginning. That was pretty good, I thought.
This sounds like lunacy – genuine, gibbering cartoon lunacy – but, for a moment there, Die Another Day was my favourite James Bond film. Hand on heart, it was. I went to see it at the cinema and I was blown away when I was 12.
Watching it now I was a little less blown away. And then bored. And then horrified. And then I stayed horrified until the end, at which point I realised that I'd actually been watching my least favourite James Bond film. Die Another Day is awful. Entire books could be written about all the mistakes and missteps and bad decisions that went into making it.
The shame of it is that the opening 30 minutes are great. Here we see Bond sneak into North Korea to investigate a Colonel buying conflict diamonds. However, he's betrayed and placed into exile for 14 months where he is tortured. It's a marvellously subversive and provocative notion as we expect the end of the PTS to lead to a daring escape of some kind. Instead, Bond is brutalised and there is some really striking imagery on display. Brosnan gives his most compelling work here - even if the beard is a little OTT. (Are we supposed to buy into the Jesus imagery? Or is it meant to evoke Robinson Crusoe?)
The film even goes so far to tease that this film will be a proper espionage story. Bond is exchanged in a prisoner transfer after MI6 get intel that the agent they have disavowed is now leaking secrets. So Bond is a renegade cut from his own organisation and forced to clear his name.
That traditional Bond wit and sense of mischief is in great show during the hotel scenes in Hong Kong (where a honeypot scheme is being concocted). Soon after, Bond is activating a sleeper agent in Cuba (a place as politically contentious as North Korea). It's this material where DAD works. Had it doubled down on this tone and explored Bond's psyche and physical state post-torture, it could have been the edgy and gritty film it seemingly intended to be initially.
It's at this point, the remaining 2/3rd of the script should have been ditched. The film soon just descends into pure fantasy nonsense. DAD is mostly forgivable during the Cuba sequences and even the Blades fight (which feels more Johnny English than 007). But once the film goes to Iceland and the terrible plot unspools, all bets are off. Lasers in space? Genetic surgery? Invisible cars? It stops being 'fun' and soon gets offensive.
The film goes full ham and just feels like a parody. The movie that it bought to mind the most was Batman & Robin. You can't help but feel that the Bond series was totally out of ideas in the early 2000's (with the arrival of the Matrix, John Woo and comic -book films) and DAD was there attempt to keep up. But it's just an embarrassing tacky, kitsch and cringeworthy movie.
Halle Berry is dreadful in this film. It's not helped that Jinx is the most useless spy you can imagine. It's not even played for laughs how incompetent she is. We've supposed to be impressed by her. Berry's performance really boils down to the bikini scene. Which she looks great in.
Brosnan starts well - but soon his performance just feels laboured and tired. It's no wonder Eon realised this film was essentially the end of the road for him.
The villains are actually the strongest point of the film. Toby Stephens has a turkey of a role (he's a North Korean version of Elon Musk who has Emperor Palpatine lightning powers and dresses as Robocop, never forget that) but at least Stephens knows what film he is in. He's hamming it up to the hilt and is actually quite fun as the sneering pantomime baddie.
Rosamund Pike is the strongest point of the film. She's sexy, elegant, classy and perfectly case as Frost. She's Grace Kelly gone bad. I even think Zao is pretty damn cool. I love his conceit and look - even though it looks a bit comic-booky. Also, Rick Yune is damn pretty but no actor.
The plot mechanics also are haphazardly presented. Bond stages a daring escape from the ice palace, only to then return to save Jinx? Why? It's an odd circle to loop and so much of the big action set-pieces of the film are crammed into this segment which simply feels superfluous. Nonetheless, the real scene-stealers are the Aston Martin Vanquish and the Icelandic glaciers.
Meanwhile, the fiery airborne climax is sufficiently protracted to prompt the feeling that this day has gone on long enough. Watching this whole scene feels like chore. The film should have ended by now, but still feels compelled to shoehorn in a needlessly long action finale. It's made more painful by the dumb father-son confrontation which is beyond risible, only made worse by David Arnold's bafflingly music beats.
DAD is the film for you if you want to watch some dated CGI, quasi-sci-fi nonensence that feels like a betrayal of what the franchise has always been about. I'm shocked that the 12 year old me loved this film so much....what an odd child. The best thing to come from DAD are the behind-the-scenes documentaries and Greg Williams's Bond on Set book...the film itself is pure self-parody.
Going back through the Bonds with a 2020 perspective, it’s interesting to note how many times prior to the new era, the franchise tried to “go gritty” only to gradually morph back into something lighter and sillier. Sometimes, that happened all in the space of one film, as in this entry.
As it is, watching the paunchy Pierce Brosnan run around in an invisible Aston Martin is embarrassing. Give me a flying Ford Anglia any day.
2/5
What a brilliantly written piece.
It also felt like the end of an era for Vic Armstrong too. The stunts looked (when not CGI) a little old-fashioned. There was no sense of pushing boundaries. It was colour-by-numbers from someone who'd had their day.