Die Another Day is a return to the extravagant theatrics of doom for the James Bond series, featuring a massive ice palace, body altering genetic experiments and identity swapping, a man with fragments of diamond embedded across the side of his bleached face and a weapon designed to crack the earth in two. As perhaps befits its amplified, comic bookish narrative, the film does not display the darker strains, the tattered edges, as prominently as have the previous three, Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World Is Not Enough.

While not works of the most profound significance, Brosnan's first Bond films were strangely melancholic and self-aware of the wounds the central characters carry with them. Die Another Day is not as strangely sad as the other films, and even when the elements are aligned, the 13 month torture of Bond as encapsulated in the title sequence and the subsequent rogue agent storyline, for a more introspective turn, the film eschews that in favor of elaborate adventure. Not that the decision is a poor one; indeed, the film is enjoyable enough in its excesses. And, ultimately, it is Brosnan's turn as Bond which provides the unifying link whatever bends occur in the narrative, the hero as pensive center. 

It has become heretical in many circles to even suggest that Sean Connery is anything less than the greatest 007. This obsession with the supposed unimpeachable quality of early Bond is misleadingly simplistic.While Connery did indeed capture elements of the role magically, there was always something missing. Ian Fleming's literary Bond was a troubled man, a slightly morose figure lost within an ice age of violence. There always seemed to be a shadow hovering over him, a terrible realization waiting in the wings. The Bond films have preferred to emphasize the action of the chase, the rightness of the kill, leaving such melancholy ruminations to
other works like Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Torn Curtain. A turn around occurred with Goldeneye, one of both tone and, especially, performance. Brosnan's now four film deep characterization of Bond recalls Fleming's original vision. Whereas Connery's Bond was filled with smirking
indifference, Brosnan's is filled with rage; where Dalton's was the sensitive man, Brosnan's is the hero darkened, a fierce killer and yet haunted, aware of the cost of his actions but determined to maintain order. 

Watch his face as he studies Elektra King's hostage tape, or when he discovers one time love Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher) dead in Tomorrow Never Dies, or when he first confronts the close friend turned arch villain in Goldeneye; it's there in his eyes, in the little movements. Brosnan is a talented actor awaiting the chance (and perhaps the courage) to break out of the routine. Anyone who can give a cartoon character like James Bond a scary, painful edge deserves as much. 

This is not to say, however, that Bond is now totally angst ridden. Brosnan, a very handsome, dashing Hollywood star type, is just as wonderful hurtling through death defying misadventures, slipping in the infamous punning wisecracks and charming the ladies; he's simply a lot of fun to watch.  But this only makes the quiet moments stand out that much more. In Die Another Day, it seems that Bond is in a less than favorable position, abandoned by his government to torture and imprisonment after being betrayed by a British Intelligence insider. Freed after 13 months, Bond sets about trying to discover who set him up and how it all ties into the plot concocted by one Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) to take over the world. 

Joined by fellow undercover agent Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike) and American CIA operative Jinx (Halle Berry), Bond battles Graves and his cohorts with little support from the Ministry. This tension between Bond and his government, or at least from Judi Dench's M, has been present from the
beginning, even when papered over with the "understanding" that his actions are, of course, appreciated deep down (Q worries about her super agent even when not trying to appear concerned). Bond's treatment as almost a necessary "evil," while perhaps in part a somewhat ersatz concession to the
fashionable contemporary destain for the politics of the older films, is unusual in its way. If not quite a deconstruction of the hero, it's a welcome complication. 

Unfortunately, the film doesn't really develop Bond's alienation from the Ministry to any degree, setting up the premise and then abandoning (forgetting?) it soon afterward.  Mixed along with the destabilization of Bond's structural foundation is a commentary on the struggle between generations and the increase in insurgent threats. This theme of the emergence of vast, unexpected threats within the new political structures of the world in the wake of the collapse of empires has been a running theme for the Brosnan Bond films. With the traditional cinematic spy enemies gone, specifically the Soviets, the time is ripe for "rogue" threats to arise. The concept is humorous if only because it implies that the battle between the West and the Soviet forces was a kind of gentlemen's game, deadly but pure in its epic-ness. These rogue threats are therefore by default characterized as upstarts on the political field, meddling in affairs which are "rightly" beyond, and above, them. Conflict is conflict; as Lenny Bruce once said about fellow comics who were always searching for mainstream approval and success, there is no "class room" to play and thereby make it big: there is no "class room" in which to engage in an elegant war. 

Gustav Graves is a villain whose outer surface, a cultivated
aristocratic sheen, hides a nasty secret while his cohort Zao (an effectively underplayed Rick Yune) is frustrated in his attempt to alter his appearance, leaving him disfigured, and Miranda and Jinx both adopt personas which at first deceive the viewer. Deception and identity manipulation are the rules of the game in Die Another Day, and while this is nothing new for a spy film, it resonates on a more thematic level when considered alongside the political dimension of the films' profound insecurity when trying to identify the "enemy," globally speaking.  

The DVD release of the film is jam packed, all packaged in a display of whirling menus and gizmo graphics. All of the Brosnan period Bond films have been pretty well fleshed out in terms of extras, and Die Another Day continues the trend.  With two commentary tracks, one by director Lee Tamahori and Producer Michael Wilson and another by Brosnan and actress Rosamund Pike, there are plenty of observations to go around. The wordy ruminations end there, however, and the rest of the disc is filled with techno-obsessed special effect detailing which becomes so ridiculously narrowly focused that time is spent discussing the visual elements of the opening credit sequence. Including the video for Madonna's song "Die Another Day" is one thing, but do we need to watch a making of "documentary" of said video? Animated Featurettes describing Bond's gadgets may be appropriate given the tradition of the franchise, but are they  intrinsically interesting? Perhaps it's a moot point; Bond fans expect certain things and who is to say whether those expectations are right or wrong. Certainly one can praise the DVD for being rather fully packed of such expectations, but it is also possible to justify the expectation that more substantial material could have been used to round out two discs.  

One of the arguable features of Brosnan's tenure as Bond has been a welcome increase in a certain narrative and character complexity, and it would be nice to see the DVDs' reflect this tendency. The two disc set for Die Another Day, if not quite as good as previous Bond releases, is enjoyable enough for all of its flash. As a genre film and, more importantly, as a franchised genre film, there will always be an in-built audience and thereby, to a certain degree at least, a guaranteed profit, if only in rentals. Ultimately there is very little that is surprising about the disc, but there is certainly something vaguely dissatisfying.

(Released by MGM/UA Video; rated "PG-13" for action violence and sexuality.)