Die Another Day Movie Review:

First of all, Goldeneye still the top Pierce Brosnan 007 film for me.

HOWEVER.....

Seeing the two, let's face it, horse-shit 007 movies after that...Die Another Day is a swan song.

There will be a lot of comparing here with this latest installation of the 007 series. There are a five things that really make up the typical Bond movie and I'll use that as a guide to review it.

James Bond: James Bond has always been kinda of a cocky bastard. But the thing is for me...I don't really like cockiness. It takes a certain style and look to pull that off, and the example that I have off the top of my head is Spike Spiegal of Cowboy Bebop fame. The thing is for me, James Bond is a cocky..."OFF SNEAKY SNEAKY SPY-EY" type of guy and a serious spy when it came to gun-fights, and fighting. Roger Moore was by far the most cocky of the James Bonds, with his constipated face that he had in almost every scene.

What really brought up this idea was when it came to a gun-fight/escape scene with James Bond handcuffed to Michelle Yeoh. Instead of looking like he was concentrating, James Bond look like he was writing up a report (usually on how many inept henchmen he killed and babes he shagged). That really kinda stuck to me, not to mention the overall crappiness of "Tommorow Never Dies".

However this time, they tone down the cockniess and ego. The only place that it really stood out was when he surfed into North Korean territory, made witter banter with Jinx and the excessive testosterone laden "Sword Duel". Granted a spy needs to know all new age crap to cope, in regards to the surfing, but I hardly needed a blatent 'pop-culture-Josh-everyteen' reference short of having Avril Lavinge singing a remix of Skaterboi; Surferboi, and having Tony Hawk thrash on his board through a mine-field.

This time, Brosnan's performance is fairly good, aside from the aformentioned cockiness issue I personally have.

Bond Babes: WOOT, OMFG IT'S HALLE BARRY!!!!11!!!!!1!! I really didn't care. I expected that somehow an Oscar meant some acting ability, however sadly, that's probably why they don't award Oscars for acting in a 007 flick. I really didn't care for Halle Barry's Jinx, somewhat a foil for James Bond's personality. As for the other chick that Bond shags....whatever hardly noticiable considering she didn't have a "look" as the previous 007 women. Granted there were some scenes that would have resulted in a "Yeah, chalk one up for womanhood", she had to be saved TWICE. Not to mention the lovely ebonics reference....way to further progress Black culture there. YO MOMMA. Of course with that all aside, she was obviously better than the other Bond Babes in the previous two movies.

Enemies: YAWN....Zhao should have been renamed Stupid-henchperson-with-no-powers. It was his action scenes and acting skillz that saved him from bunking with possibly one of the worse Brosnan villans Renard. Diamonds in his face and becoming the "ultimate bannana"? At least headbutt Bond and scratch his face. The general was much better than other villans cause he actually had a "plan", not some stupid fucking ideal.

Gadgets: So-so, the super death ray was a welcomed return to spy-ville, and the BMW used it's screen time wisely, however overall there wasn't too much that could have been made in order to have a "need" for more gadgets.

Evil Plot: A "real" step up this time. Instead of going for a fucking "nouveau" villan of the modern era with "other goals" other than world domination and shit like that, they actually went balls out with plain, I'm-gonna-fuck-you-up evil plot with the giant death ray. By no means a great convention, Goldeneye's death ray was much smarter, but just plain destruction is always good.

So for the new James Bond film I give it a weak:

3.5/5.0 stars.