25 Days of Bond (Day 20)

This is going to be another short one with not much thought or effort put into it since that is what the writers and Pierce Brosnan did while making the darn thing. Die Another Day is half of a good movie and the other half belongs in the Razzie's Hall of Fame. Here is what's actually good about it.

1. I have given a lot of praise to the title sequences during Brosnan's run as Bon and while I don't like the actual theme and images shown in this title sequence I do like that they show part of the story during it. They've never done anything like that before or after and it happily distracts us from the stupid Madonna song and plethora of scorpions (its just too many scorpions being shown; we get it, they used scorpions on him during the torture).

2. Raoul the sleeper agent is a really cool bit. I don't necessarily think the character is all that memorable, but the idea of Bond activating a long-forgotten sleeper in Cuba was an interesting idea.

3. This is the 20th film in the series (like the title of this post references), so the producers wanted it to reference the other 19 films to have come before. Some are extremely obvious and annoying, while others are subtle and enjoyable. The ones that work I really like and wish they had tried as hard on all the others that are just, "hey remember this thing we did that was so much better the first time around."

4. November 22, 2002, is when I fell in love with Rosamund Pike. She is in my all-time favorites list of actresses and nearly 20 years later she looks just as gorgeous as she did when she graced the screen in this movie.

5. One nod to the literary world of 007 is when Bond duels Gustav Graves at Blades. This is a gentlemen's club we are introduced to in the novel Moonraker. This is the closest we've actually gotten to a cinema version of Moonraker as the movie with that title has nothing to do with the book other than using the villain's name. The sword fight at Blades is the best part of this movie. It is intense and shows off some creative swordplay.

6. "Hey boss. He beat your time."

7. Nearly everything in Iceland is horrific and unwatchable, however, the car chase with 007 and Zao is pretty great. It is fun to see the evil version of Bond get his own gadget-filled vehicle and they go at it.