Product Description

When his top-secret mission is sabotaged, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) finds himself captured by theenemy, abandoned by MI6 and stripped of his 00-license. Determined to get revenge, Bond goes head-to-head with a sultry spy (OscarÂ(r) winner* Halle Berry), a frosty agent (Rosamund Pike) anda shadowy billionaire (Toby Stephens) whose business is diamonds but whose secret is a diabolical weapon that could bring the world to its knees! Bristling with excitement and bursting with explosivespecial effects, Die Another Day is an adrenaline-pumping thrill-ride with "stunts and non-stop action [that] will astonish you" (Jeffrey Lyons, WNBC-TV)! *2001: Actress, Monster'sBall

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18675 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-06-03
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 133 minutes

Amazon.com
The 20th James Bond adventure, Die Another Day succeeds on three important fronts: it avoids comparison to Austin Powers by keeping its cheesy humor in check, allows Halle Berry to be sexy and worthy of a spinoff franchise, and keeps pace with the technical wizardry that modern action films demand. Pierce Brosnan's got style and staying power as James Bond, now bearing little resemblance to Ian Fleming's original British super-spy, but able to hold his own at the box office. He's paired with American agent Jinx (Berry) in chasing a genetically altered North Korean villain (Rick Yune) armed with a satellite capable of destroying just about anything. John Cleese and Judi Dench reprise their recurring roles (as "Q" and "M," respectively); they're accompanied by weapons-laden sports cars, a hokey cameo by Madonna (who sings the techno-pulsed theme song), and enough double-entendres to keep Bond-philes adequately shaken and stirred. With clever nods to 007's cinematic legacy, Die Another Day makes you welcome the familiar end-credits promise: James Bond will return. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
James Bond DVDs have in general been pretty loaded, but Die Another Day raises the bar with a two-disc set featuring dynamic DTS 6.1 ES and Dolby Digital 5.1 EX sound that makes good use of the rear speakers. The first commentary track is by Pierce Brosnan and Rosamund Pike (who plays villain Miranda Frost). They weren't together at the time, so their comments are spliced into one track. Brosnan has a good time watching and is proud of the film but also doesn't take himself too seriously ("They don't teach you this stuff at drama school: 'OK, now you're going to be electrocuted by the bad guy.'"). Self-proclaimed "Bond novice" Pike also is proud of the film and says she's annoyed by people who question whether there's still a need for Bond. On the second commentary track, director Lee Tamahori and producer Michael G. Wilson chat about topics as diverse as casting, Bond lore, and product placements. For more Bond lore, don't overlook the trivia track, which offers pop-up tidbits about the filming and tips on the inside jokes.

The centerpiece of the second disc is the 80-minute "Inside Die Another Day" documentary, which is a set of featurettes strung together. Topics include the opening surfing sequence; the scenes set in North Korea and Cuba (including Halle Berry's bikini tribute to Ursula Andress); the ice palace; post-production elements such as computer graphics, editing, and music; the car battle (finding strong ice was the key safety issue); and the passing of the "Q" torch from Desmond Llewellyn to John Cleese. --David Horiuchi

From The New Yorker
James Bond's twentieth cinematic adventure, the fourth with the redoubtable Pierce Brosnan in the lead, gets off to an unsettling start. The pre-credit sequence sees Bond captured by the North Korean military, imprisoned, and tortured. (By the time he's set free, he bears an unfortunate resemblance to John Walker Lindh.) Many believe Bond gave away valuable information under torture, and the movie picks up speed when a revenge-seeking 007 teams up with an American agent nicknamed Jinx (Halle Berry) to clear his name. The usual irresistible Bond-film kicks are on full display, but the teaming of Brosnan and Berry never heats up-he's effortlessly in character, she's all eye candy. Her acting seems very tentative; it helps when she doesn't have to deliver a line. She does, however, have a classic Bond moment-a sexy lifting of her eyebrow before a backward dive off a cliff. The action scenes play well, the high point being a fencing duel between Bond and his nemesis, although a scene with Bond surfing an ice-strewn tsunami is a regrettable bust. Lee Tamahori keeps the film's style squarely in the range of past, personality-free Bond epics. Perhaps the most that can be said of this entertainment-in the innuendo-drenched parlance of the franchise-is that it's well tooled. -Bruce Diones
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

unbelievably hopeless
I simply cannot believe how anyone in their right mind could enjoy this film. It lacked continuity, was completely disjointed, and saying the characters were two dimensional is a compliment , not to mention the dialogue which was nothing less than laughable - and the plot ??? , where was that again, please really !!! I can see why it was his swan song - If you like GOOD Bond films do not waste your money !

Beware if you own Sharp BD HP20U
The Blu-Ray Die Another Day would not play on my Sharp BD HP20U. Checking the web, I suspect that I need to upgrade my firmware.
I am still trying to do this, which requires downloading a file from Sharp onto a USB drive, then going through a procedure with the player, involving a little USB slot on the back of the machine. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to do this successfully, although I am still trying. Amazon was kind enough to refund my money, no questions asked. However, after checking internet sites, I note a lot of comments about the need to upgrade firmware to deal with incompatibilities with certain discs, and the fact that some people have trouble doing so. The process on a Sharp BD-HP20U is not very easy, I am technically probably more savvy than most, but you almost have to be Fully Qualified Geek to upgrade firmware. This is definitively something these companies need to improve. If you do the upgrade wrongly, you can render your player into a useless non functioning pile of junk. Die Another Day (James Bond) [Blu-ray]

3 stars out of 4
The Bottom Line:

Though Die Another Day suffers from its inclusion of bad CGI effects and a tendency to go all-out preposterous, it does enough things differently and enough things right to make it barely worth a recommendation, especially if you're a Bond aficionado who wants to catch all the references to previous Bond outings.