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Comments
Agree totally! Armstrong is a terrible action director. His set pieces go on and on and devoid of excitement!
He also has this tendency of filming stuff from about a mile away.
I wonder how the wing mirror is visible? :)
This a great point. DAD has some seriously enduring pieces of iconography. Up there with some of the vintage Bond films like GF and TSWLM.
You can't really beat the following:
That's a helluva list.
However, the plot is batshit crazy. I think you could really remake DAD in a few years and actually focus on the interesting things in the film: (1) Bond being tortured and psychologically broken, (2) More emphasis on his quest for revenge and to clear his name, (3) More focus on Miranda Frost to make her betrayal more impactful (Bond only finds out a few hours beforehand that she was even an MI6 agent), and (4) More focus on the conflict diamonds.
A smarter director would have leaned on this aspect and made the film about a rogue North Korean Colonel doing shade deals to get his hands on conflict diamonds. That's way more geopolitically interesting than lasers in outer space.
It's really the introduction of the Gustav Graves character where the film nosedives. Though Toby Stephens is actually rather good and making the most of the truly exceptionally bad script. He's a lip-smacking villain. But when he speaks Korean.....😬 It's also a grotesque example of whitewashing to take one of the few Korean actors from your film and then not let them play the main villain and instead literally cast a white actor to do it. I'd even go as far as to say it's racist, but DAD is so dumb and ignorant, that I don't think it even crossed the filmmakers' minds, which is absurd.......God, I hate this move.
I think Tamahori get's a lot of blame for this. However, I've done some research and the script was set beforehand. Much of the ideas came from Purvis and Wade/Wilson and Broccoli. Maybe Tamahori hammed things up....but the blame does not lie solely with him. The invisible car and the North Korean facelift technology was all in a script draft in May 2001 and Tamahori joined in July/August 2001.
I think Barbara was still finding her footing in the Brosnan years...it wasn't till the Craig films when she truly became confident and knew what she wanted. I think we are quicker to forgive the mainstays as they have proven themselves since and pushed the blame on Tamahori......it's a shame Brosnan got such dud directors. He was great in GE and occasionally so in TWINE.
It's clear they wanted to make something gritty and tough! What happened?!? They chickened out on their great idea, that's what...
I like the guy but I think he hung around a few films too long.
Couldnt agree more! He does seem like a nice guy in interviews, but he is a poor action director, his set pieces drag on and are just not exciting enough! Much prefer Arthur Wooster, we dont hear enough about him, and he was one of the few who survived the cull after the John Glen era, working on several of the Brossa movies. He seems to be a genial interview subject!
I can relate. I was 15 when it came out and was
Damn... would've been a much better movie with a different director (ahem - Campbell), and had EON, P&W, and Brosnan been more aligned on what the focus should've been.
Yeah, the TWINE ski chase is pretty appalling stuff, and Arnold's chugging ponderous score does nothing to help.
I always laugh at that bizarre edit where Pierce appears to be watching his own stunt double. What were they thinking?
He looks down, watches his stunt double do some skiing, looks back up again. Bizarre.
:)) never noticed that before
Sorry- I'm afraid you may never be able to unsee it now! :D
You know what I mean though? That's an edit you'd do if they were two different characters- not supposed to be the same one!
MI6 Community: Ruining the Bond franchise for me, one scene at a time. ;)
Yeah, the editing in your clip absolutely indicates Bond is looking at someone else. Not something I ever noticed watching the film, so maybe in the greater context of the scene it's not as noticeable?
Haha. That's really funny actually :))
As a big fan of TSWCIFTC, That would've been very cool.
And he could have done it too, as The Tailor Of Panama displayed so proudly.
There will never be an experience for me as when I was blown away during CR. I saw it in an actual casino while dressed in a suit. (Well a military suit as I had to wear it off base during tech training)
Count me as well in the TSWCIFTC fandom community! Or the TSWCIFTCFC as I should rather call it ;)
In fact, probably the film's best shot is when we arrive in Iceland and travel across the glaciers to see Bond in the Vanquish - in spite (and maybe because of) the speed-ramping. It's helped by Arnold's terrific score in that beat!
Another underrated scene is the confrontation with Graves. Some actual great villainy on show from Stephens and Brosnan is suitably surly. I approve.
Though on reflection, who else found the scene between M and Frost weird. When she ask about people coming on to her at work.....it's odd. I mean, is M trying to make an advance here?! Why does M care who Frost is or isn't having sex with at work. Could be another Rosa Klebb situation.
Also, spotted Halle Berry getting some love on the 00anxiety Instagram page...which reminded me quote how 2000's this movie was...
This scene also suffers from the preceding laser rays/Zao/Mr. Kil/Jinx/sleeping mask sequence, I think. Could have been outstanding otherwise.
I really do believe there is a very solid idea at the start of this film, North Korea as a location was unique, and I like that Bond is captured and tortured. Id say that as soon as Halle in introduced, the film goes flying off a cliff.
Its really frustrating, you can see the ideas there, all gone to waste.
Who is JBR?
James Bond Radio. They are not kind about this film.
Aha. Who would be though? ;)