Top: Halle Berry as Jinx: a delectable and very capable CIA agent. Below: Pierce Brosnan as James Bond: calm, cool and looking charming in black.

Another bevy of Bond girls
Die Another Day
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rick Yune, John Cleese and Judi Dench.

Reviewer :: The Big Irish Git

Bond is back – shaken, stirred, battered, bruised and generally looking more than a little the worse for wear. And it has nothing to do with the fact that Britain’s best and most successful licensed killer has been saving the world for exactly 40 years.

No, this time, during his latest escapade, James is sprung by the bad guys and, despite his usual, massively destructive escape attempt, is captured behind enemy lines.

For the next 14 months (or at least the duration of the opening credits), the normally unflappable Mr Bond is tortured and abused by his North Korean captors, all the while sure in his own mind that his country has forsaken him – as, indeed, they had.

But, unusually, fate, and not Bond himself, plays a hand in dealing 007 a chance to die another day. Trouble is, MI6 and the whole Western spy fraternity are less than happy to see him back in one, albeit scruffy, piece.

Having been rescued from North Korea and not content to be delivered quietly in to spy-world retirement, James makes a daring escape in Hong Kong harbour before proceeding with haste to Cuba.

It is here he meets the delectable and, it transpires, very capable CIA agent, Jinx (Berry).

Between the two of them they lay waste to a cliff-top “beauty parlour” before proceeding to the wide, open wastes of Iceland for the film’s biggest, best and compulsory car chase.

As if that wasn’t enough travelling for one movie, they eventually end up back in North Korea to save the world from the baddie with the big gun.

Die Another Day expands and develops some welcome facets to the franchise.

Brosnan’s first appearance as James Bond, although long awaited by Remington Steel fans, was a little disappointing.

Goldeneye was dogged by rampant political correctness, with both the womanising and the violence underplayed – the latter to such an extent it was reminiscent of a made-for-TV special where you know the bad guy is cactus, but you never actually see the killer blow.

Tomorrow Never Dies brought back some of the grit to the action and also introduced the concept that Bond could possibly have an equal in the spy game – Chinese agent Wai Lin.

Then, in the opening sequences of The World is not Enough – shock, horror – Bond is hurt and carries a niggling injury throughout the show.

This latter-day chink in the armour, this fallibility, this notion that 007 is, after all, only human, is explored even further in this latest, and let’s hope not the last, Brosnan Bond film.

Die Another Day is, dare I say it, the best Bond yet. It is fast paced, witty and bursting with all the women, cars, women, gadgets, women, gimmicks and over-the-top stunts you know you want from Bond, James Bond. And if Jinx and Halle Berry get their rumoured spin-off franchise, I will be at the head of the queue.

The Big Irish Git rates this movie 5 shamrocks

You can view more than 100 other movie reviews by The Big Irish Git on his personal web site www.bigirishgit.com