The Ultimate DVD Geek: Die Another Day

Most of the big action sequences are ridiculously silly and the opening title song, which contains deliberate dropouts, is pure torture, but still the new James Bond movie, Die Another Day, which is being issued by MGM Home Entertainment as a two-platter Widescreen Special Edition (1004346, $30), is an enjoyable adventure, bouncing all over the world, fooling around with all sorts of gadgets, and depicting a life of suave luxury, punctuated with energetic violence.

The director, Lee Tamahori, has a weak batting average, having made more lousy films than good ones, but he does something remarkable here, sustaining the suspension of disbelief during some absolutely ludicrous moments (windsurfing off a collapsing glacier; unstrapping and rolling out a helicopter inside a disintegrating but still aerodynamic airplane). He essentially upholds an ideal balance between the fantasy machinations that the series so often tries to disguise and the pretense of maturity and seriousness that guide the characters through the narrative. It also helps that the stars, Pierce Brosnan (who is beginning to age a little) and Halle Berry are real professionals, keeping their characters focused no matter how unreal their surroundings become. For the record, the film opens in North Korea, where Bond is captured and held for a while. He then chases after a renegade Korean with the intention of assassinating him, heading to Cuba, London (where he has a swordfight with the villain in what is probably the film’s most satisfying sequence) and Iceland before returning to Korea for the finale. In one context, films these days are being pushed farther and farther toward realism—even special effects have become more realistic—and Die Another Day accommodates that trend by making Brosnan’s character a little more vulnerable than he has been in the past. It is enough to justify the fantasy aspects of the entertainment. Tamahori gets the pacing and the tone down much better than many of the previous Bond directors have, and the film’s vigor never subsides.

As with all of MGM’s Bond movies, the menu is annoyingly designed and difficult to decipher, and you are also locked into a plug for the other Bond movies before you have access to anything. The letterboxing has an aspect ratio of about 2.35:1 and an accommodation for enhanced 16:9 playback. The color transfer is fine. There is both a 5.1-channel Dolby Digital track with EX encoding and a DTS track with ES encoding, the DTS track having crisper and slightly more powerful noises. The sound mix seems to be souped up for the action scenes and then somewhat blander between the big moments. On the whole, however, the sound is very worthwhile, with plenty of rear channel punch and an involving dimensionality. The 132-minute program has alternate French and Spanish audio tracks in standard stereo and optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. There is also a very good trivia subtitle track that supplies a wealth of background information about the shoot, the cast and the crew.

There are two commentary tracks. The primary one features Tamahori and Bond franchise supervisor Michael Wilson. It is a reasonably informative talk. They explain the challenges of each sequence, talk about the cast & crew, identify the locations and discuss the logic and circumstances that led to each scene. They also let slip that the erotic sequences are a little more elaborate on the European version of the film, though sadly there’s nothing else about that in the supplement.

On the second track, Brosnan speaks by himself, with inserted comments by secondary co-star Rosamund Pike. Brosnan is ill served by the format of the talk and really needs to have company at the microphone instead of going it alone with occasional unheard queries from the commentary producers. There are gaps in his talk and much of what he does say is a bland affirmation of the action on the screen. There is one point where he shares an interesting narrative about his initially tentative relationship with Tamahori and describes Tamahori’s working methods, and he talks a tiny bit about the prospect of retiring from the role someday, but such moments of partial openness and reflection are rare.

The primary supplement on the second platter is an excellent 82-minute collection of featurettes that break apart various sequences and show how they were staged. Other aspects of the film are also explored, with an emphasis on material unique to the film and things that had never been attempted before. The other rewarding segment is a collection of multiple camera angles from several action sequences, which the viewer can select individually or in a group. As a group the sequences run about 11 minutes, but you can spend a lot more time examining each angle and comparing it to the others, because of the behind-the-scenes glimpses and artistic deconstruction the segment provides.

There are also storyboard comparison segments for two scenes, running a total of 7 minutes. A well-designed 10-minute piece on the opening title sequence uses an extended version of the title number and inserted explanatory text as it presents a montage of the different steps and different pieces that were used to put the segment together. Also featured are a 3-minute segment on the ‘digital grading’ light manipulation process, a 5-minute overview of the hero’s gadgets, an extensive still photo collection, three trailers, a 4-minute collection of TV commercials, Madonna’s music video, a 4-minute piece on the making of Madonna’s music video and a 3-minute piece about making the video game tie in.

Douglas Pratt's DVD-Laser Disc Newsletter is published monthly.
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