Die Today, Not Another Day

Pierce Brosnan's final James Bond adventure, Die Another Day, has both positive and negative points.

On the positive side:-
1/ The sword fight between Toby Stephens and Brosnan, is fast, frenzied, well chreographed and exciting.
2/ Since this is the 20th official Bond movie from EON productions, the references to other adventures are fun to spot.
3/ Bond's incarceration in a North Korean prison is bold movie by the script-writers, giving a unique motivation for the MI6 investigation this time round.
4/ Although much hated, the Madonna theme song is great (much, much, much better than either the Shertl Crow or Garbage efforts that tarnished Brosnan's previous outings).
5/ Rosamund Pike is a spectacular english-rose-with-an-impossibly-sexy-english-accent beauty.
6/ Toby Stephen's is a suitably smarmy and memorable bad guy (initially).

On the negative (are you sitting comfortably):-
1/ This features some of THE worst CGI special effects to see the light of day..especially in a mega-budget production like this. What on earth possessed producers to drop the reliance on physical stunts, which has become the franchises trademnark, and fall back on cheap and obvious pixel power? Bond parachute-surfing the iceflow is THE worst moment in the whole Bond series.
2/ Madonna is a shit actress and should not be allowed near celluloid.
3/ Once Toby Stephens is revealed to be baddie General Moon in disguise, the character's integrity crumbles along with Stephen's inadequete acting ability.
4/ While Bond films have always swung back and forth between the serious and the more fantastical...the science on display here is absurb...destroying the credibiliy of the Brosnan films. The invisible car is utter w~*k.
5/ For the first (and only) time in the Bond franchise, terrible sped-up editing techniques are used, along with the irritating process known as the "Avid Fart".
It's meant to look cool. It does not.
6/ Most of the movie is shot with an over-colourful, comic strip vibe. This is Bond...not Batman & Robin. No, no, no.
7/ There's a moment that occurs in any long running series with the same actor (Indy, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard) where hero appears and is revealed to be getting a little long in the tooth. Of course, the resulting performance is usually reliably convincing (unless it's Roger in Octopussy). But that moment arrived for Brosnan right here.
8/ The clever mistrust in the script, that follows Bond's release from captivity, is completely lost after the first half an hour. What a waste.
9/ Why is Halle Berry still making movies? She was sexy in her youth (oh, and in Swordfish). But she can't act, regardless of what the Oscar Academy says. She's terrible in most things, interchangable in The X-men films and irritating in this.

While it's competantely shot and glossily produced, this is pretty awful. No wonder EON productions went in the opposite direction when it came to their Casino Royale reboot. Thank god.