HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day - Page 2

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

No disrespect to Halle Berry as an actress, but she was awful in the movie. Her character had a cutesy name ("Jinx") and was full of phony attitude. Behind the scenes must have been like that episode of the Simpsons when they decide to spice up Itchy and Scratchy by introducing Poochie, a dog with attitude. She joins a long list of bad stunt casting in Bond movies, including Denise Richards, Grace Jones, Tayna Roberts, and so on.

That the producers were even considering spinning her character off into another series of movies is cause enough for concern about their judgment.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

What!?!


Ah, yes, that would have been horrible but we have to remember that it was that project that eventually snowballed into the genesis of Casino Royale.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Somehow, in between 2002 and 2005 (when Daniel Craig was hired), they came to their senses.

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When Die Another Day came out, it was at the time the top grossing Bond ever, so they certainly didn't switch the kind of movies they were making because of any financial concerns or flops. I think them coming to their senses had everything to do with the rights to Casino Royale finally being available to them, as they had wanted to make that pretty much forever.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

"Die Another Day" essentially became Bond's equivalent of "Assignment: Earth"!

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You're all insane, except for the ones who agree with me.

And Sam, because that comparison of Jinx to Poochie is genius!

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

TWINE gets it for me cause the storyline is fairly believable (even if the action isn't). I loved the idea of the woman as the villian and I thought Sophie great in the role (hot too!! Beats Eva Green so far as French actresses).

Now I will concede the following:

Denise Richards is beyond horrible!
Outside the opening boat chase the action was dull.
Reinard was a weak character.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Honestly, i've never understood the appeal of THE SPY WHO LOVES ME? To me it's like MOONRAKER under water. Outside Hamlish's title song I thought the score sucked! Now as for Barbara Bach, she has to be in the top 3 of Bond babes!!!

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

That's because both screenplays were written by Christopher Bond. The only two he did I believe, but since TSWLM came before Moonraker I can appreciate that a little bit more than Moonraker. It is the EXACT same plot in both movies, same lame bad guy, same ridiculous climactic battle scene and (surprise) Jaws is in both movies as well, but where TSWLM had some redeeming qualities in there Moonraker had absolutely none.

DAD is bad, Halle Berre not withstanding, but as bad as that is, Moonraker makes DAD look like Shakespeare. I could go on and on for forever about how bad Moonraker is, but I think most poeple already know.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

The redeeming values of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME are:

Barbara Bach
The Ski Jump
Naomi the heliocopter pilot
The Lotus (but there's a good and bad to that)
Jaws

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

I also think the last half of Spy generates some real tension, particularly aboard Stromberg's tanker. Not only is it an amazing Ken Adams set, but I love the scenes where they extract the detonator from the missile, when Bond uses it to blow through the wall by riding on the camera and when they reprogram the subs to detonate one another. Exciting stuff!

I can't believe it's compared to Moonraker. There's some real plot similarities, but Moonraker's about a hundred times more goofy!

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

With all the crap that Moonraker gets, its got at least a couple of watchable scenes ... the opening for one. A View to a Kill is just too horrible to watch... downright painful, from the ruined beginning with the Beach Boys tune (that another thing... California Girls? when they could have played something more appropriate like Surf City) to the ridiculous stunts throughout... split car, fire engine, etc. Funny thing is when it comes out in BluRay, the completist in me must have it.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

I haven't yet contributed to this page of the thread:

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Commenting on the disc itself, it's very good with a few caveats.

While picture is sharp, there does seem to be edge enhancement. This is a very processed looking film. However colors did pop where allowed.

The DTSMA is excellent as I knew it would be. There was a lot of inner detail unlocked in the lossless track over the lossy. I do wonder about one thing? As the DVD was a 5.1 ES release, would it have been too much for them to release this with a 6.1 track?

I think the MI6 bitstream would have been better served recut into a PIP track.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

My first Bond film was THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, which I saw in the theater when I was 15. Needless to say, I love it. It still remains one of the best of the Bonds today. The character of Jaws alone was awesome. Barbara Bach was gorgeous.

When I saw MOONRAKER a couple of years later I was somewhat disappointed, but in no way do I find it the least enjoyable of all the 007 films. As had been said before, there were some good moments ... the pre-credits sequence, the girl getting chased by the dogs, Bond nearly getting killed in the gravity machine (forgot the name of it), the scene where Bond clips a sniper form the tree. The biggest problem with MOONRAKER for me was that the Jaws character just got TOO foolish, and the outer space climax just went on forever. But it's a fun and underrated Bond comic book.

A VIEW TO A KILL is near the bottom of my list of Bond movies, but oddly enough a recent reappraisal of the film rose it up a few notches for me.

Though I grew up with Roger Moore, over time I have come to prefer Sean Connery in the role, and I realize Moore's liabilities.

I may be in a minority, but I despise ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. I'd also place DIE ANOTHER DAY and the new QUANTUM OF SOLACE at the bottom of my Bond pile.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

You are right, the film did have some fun moments. In fact MOONRAKER was the first Bond i'd seen theatrically and I loved it! Of course I was 18 at the time but it seemed so cool! It wasn't till I became older and got to see many other Bond films that I could see how contrived and silly the characters and the plots of the film.

It was so obvious an attempt to cash in on the Star Wars craze going on at that time. Lois Chiles isn't even memorable as a Bond girl and had little chemistry with Bond.

What I will say is that MOONRAKER probably had the last great John Barry score and theme song. For that it deserves plaudits.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Yes that is what it definitely was, and I believe it was promoted that way too somewhat. The first Bond in space and all that or some such nonsense. Spies in spoace with ray guns. UGH! It just went too out of the realm of believability for me. WAY too far.

The pre-title sequence was ok, but there have been much better ones. The girl running away from the dogs was absurd! I was watching that 2 weeks ago and she drives herself there with a golf cart, because Drax wanted to see her. Then, after Drax terminates her she sees the handler let the dogs go and she walks right past the golf cart instead of jumping in it and riding off before she breaks out into a full run. What the hell is that? Get in the DAMN cart and go! Utter stupidity that I would expect in a slasher movie, not a Bond movie.

And don't even get me started on Lois Chiles as Dr. Holly Goodhead. To me, she had the worst portrayal of any Bond woman in any Bond movie EVER, tied only with Denise Richards. Lois Chiles just gave an absolutely wretched performance IMO. It was so flat. There was absolutley no feeling in anything she said in the entire movie. For example, she stops Bond in the centrifugal force machine, he almost died as it went up to a G Force almost no one ever goes to and lives, and she opens up the door, unbuckles him and just says something like "I don't know how that could have happened. The controls must have jammed." And she said it like saying to her husband of 20 years "I am going downstairs to make a ham sandwich." OMG!! I revise my earlier point at the start of this paragraph: In the history of ALL movies I have EVER watched I can't, in all honesty, come up with a performance by any actor/actress that I have hated more than this one. I really can't.

Jaws could have been a decent bad guy if they did something menacing with him and made him a scary force. He was a farce, not a force. And once he meets up with Goldilocks forget about it. His character just became a total joke.

The only redeeming part of this movie was the John Barry theme song sung by Shirley Bassey. I love that song.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Mmm, ham sandwich.

I have this vague memory of liking A View To A Kill but the only part of the movie I remember at all is the steeplechase scene, which I saw on TV recently and which was incredibly dumb. Good song, though.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Of course, if being dumb was a criteria for not buying a Bond film then I would have to skip all of Moore's run, because all of his Bond films were dumb.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

I also recall talk - before Craig was hired - of Quentin Tarantino wanting to do the next Bond movie, which would be based on Casino Royale and star Brosnan. It would be a gritty, back to basics approach.

Although the producers didn't use Tarantino or Brosnan, they did adopt the premise.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Thanks for the review of Die Another Day. i'm so glad the Bond films are coming to blu ray finally!

For me, I really liked how Die Another Day started off story wise with Bond. I liked how the titles were used to move the film along as well. However, when the story moves to Iceland, the movie kind of falls apart for me.

I remember seeing it in the theater, and thinking it would be the first one I didn't want to own. I loved all of the previous Bond films, even TWINE which was a disappointing a bit as well, but had some decent moments.

I ended up picking up Die Another Day on DVD when Best Buy offered the Bond Girls Are Forever DVD documentary with purchase of the film.

I also have bought the film again, as I own all of the UE DVD sets.

Back to the blu ray review.. Are the trailers for the film included on the disc? Also, are any of the Special Features in HD?

I would like to see more of the trailers, tv ads and radio ads (for the older films) included on the Bond discs. Moonraker UE DVD contains only 1 trailer for example.

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

That is disappointing that there are no trailers included for the release.
I know Casino Royale (2006) also doesn't contain the film trailers.

I guess we can expect this trend to continue for Quantum Of Solace as well..

Re: HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: Die Another Day

Happy Thanksgiving Bond fans...