- Die Another Day, the 20th entry in the Eon Productions Bond Franchise, never met a plot element it couldn't incorporate. Ice palace? Sure! Solar laser? Definitely! Gene therapy, conflict diamonds, fencing competitions, a Cuban sleeper agent, virtual reality helmets, an electroshock glove suit, and an invisible car somehow all appear in this film. Clearly taking the "more is better" approach to filmmaking, director Lee Tamahori delivers an excess of excessiveness that would prove to be Bond's final tongue-in-cheek goofy actionfest before the series took its inevitable turn toward gritty realism.
- As was often the case, Pierce Brosnan is a better Bond than average, even as he is called upon to surf CGI waves. As an undercover agent, Rosamund Pike makes a surprisingly strong film debut, while Halle Berry is just barely good enough. The villains of the piece (Toby Stephens, Rick Yune, Will Yun Lee, Lawrence Makoare) are largely forgettable, although none of them are particularly bad. The usual cast of supporting characters (Judi Dench, John Cleese, Samantha Bond, Colin Salmon) is in attendance, but nobody quite knows what to do with Michael Madsen or Madonna. The film's best scenes involve either sword fighting or lab infiltration. The film's most representative scene, however, has Miss Moneypenny don the virtual reality helmet for an implied masturbation session.
