Should NEVER have existed. Without this scene, it could have been one of the best "modern" 007 movies. Not included those with Sean Connery, of course. Screenplay here is good. Finally! Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry are okay. Toby Stephens is excellent. Michael Madsen (agreed his role was so short) and Rosamund Pike's (agreed her role is too long) level of acting is near zero in this 'Die Another Day' movie.

Movie Review: "007: Die Another Day" (2002)40 years after the initial Bond production "Dr. No" (1962) produced by Albert R. Broccoli (1909-1996) and Harry Saltzman (1915-1994) with just 1.1 Million Dollar in their pockets comes the twentieth installment of the all too famous MI6-Spy, portrayed with classic charms and high points for elegance by actor Pierce Brosnan at age 49, who encounters a fierce, unusual 13 minutes long pre-title sequence in a gritty North Korea exterior location confronting an hard-boiled martial arts-approved Military General about to get the best of James Bond aka "007".The film production, handled by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson for the final Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer affliate "United Artists" distribution before moving to Sony Pictures in season 2005/2006 for "Casino Royale", punches with a major Hollywood budget of 142 Million U.S. Dollars, newly acquired Computer-Generated-Imagery (CGI) with Bond getting car-chased over a frozen lake under constant spitfire from machine-gun-mounted vehicles to smooth ice wave surfing and an interior-destructing fence-fight with original written "007" antagonist Gustav Graves, who's character has become in the hands of screenwriting duo Robert Wade & Neal Purvis, far-out sketched to such an extent that even the most faithful recurring target group of "The World Is Not Enough" (1999) had to swallow the pill of given-in to an high-end almost comic spectacle over suspenseful thrills.Nevertheless the supporting cast including Halle Berry as U.S. American spy Jinx Johnson builds concrete homages to actress Ursula Andress in "Dr. No" (1962) coming out of the ocean engaging James Bond with light-hearted charms and pin-pointed dialogue lines in order to team up for an over-the-top showdown of a flying kind-of-gunship fortress, antagonist Graves wearing a misconceived metal armor active suit and a well-choreographed cat fight between Agent Jinx and villain-sidekick Miranda Frost, performed by actress Rosamund Pike with hostile convictions of sword-swinging to knife-throwing proportions.The worldwide audience did not bother on the issue of trading sophisticated espionage plot twists over to closing-in science-fiction action themes directed by Lee Tamahori supported by "Star Wars" approved cinematographer David Tattersall with a breaking-out-of-tradition manner. "Die Another Day" marks the most successful "007" installment since the 1970s, at least in terms of box office attendance, giving Pierce Brosnan as the fifth actor to engage the legendary role James Bond a fair send-off by ranging from a torture-close-to-death scenario in a stand-out opening sequence, with a phenomenal theme song by Madonna, to conclusions of diamond-pouring moments of leisure.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

This Bond flick is known as what Joel Schumacher is to "Batman & Robin". I really don't think this is that bad of a movie. But maybe I am going easy on it since it's not as bad as "Batman & Robin". As a matter of fact the first half of this movie is a okay Bond film with action combined with a passable story. Than it completely falls apart during the second half when it shows the ice palace and the orbiting satellite. Minus the Twisted Metal style battle scene. It just become too much after that, I think it might have been alright if this movie came out in the 70's or 80's. And I think that is one of the main reason why this movie got so much hate. The super campy, cheesy and ridiculous aspects of this installment just didn't fly so well in the 2000's. Halle Berry was like at her peak of stardom when this movie came out and it probably also did a lot of damage to her career as well. Or the "Catwoman" movie that came right after, but then again Halle just kept making poor decision after getting some credit for "Monster's Ball". She starts off like she is going to be a standout Bond girl, but that quickly fades when you just can't buy her as this tough badass. Mainly because of how she carries on with the action sequences, by the way she runs and holds her weapons. But yeah, the second half just because absurd and silly to the point I couldn't take the situation serious at all. It's kind of sad to see Pierce Brosnan make his final outing as Bond with this film. I do think he played a big part in making Bond relevant again. He just has the look, the charm and charisma to play Bond. Overall, I give this movie a 5/10 because the first half started out quite well.5/10

I have to admit, I have a soft spot for this film because this is the first James Bond movie I ever saw. However, looking at it objectively, I'll have to admit that it is one of the weaker Bond films out there.Pierce Brosnan is as good as ever in his final outing. He supposedly quit after this one because he didn't want to become the next Roger Moore. Halle Berry's Jinx was attractive, but the character is badly written with a lot of her lines being genuinely cringe-worthy. Rosemund Pike's Miranda Frost isn't that great, either.Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stevens, is a pretty lame villain. He's rather uninteresting and is not at all menacing. Zao, his partner, isn't much better.People, of course, have criticized the story and action-scenes as stretching the limits of plausibility. I'm gonna have to agree with them. There is such a thing as too ridiculous even for Bond, and this movie crosses that line.The opening hovercraft chase is spectacular, but the subsequent action scenes are far too cartoonish for my taste. The CGI effects also don't hold up that well, as shown in many scenes such as the stupid surfing scene.However, I really appreciate the references to previous Bond films. They did this because it was the franchise's 40th anniversary.The film has a few good parts, but it can't make up for the extremely silly and bloated nature of the film as a whole. It's one of the franchise's worst, but I still rank it ahead of "The Man With The Golden Gun." Too bad they would take the fun out of the franchise in the next couple of films.RATING: C