There are certain things you have to expect when you watch a James Bond film: Naked women (though, you never actually see nipples or genitalia), two-dimensional villains who capture Bond but leave him to die rather than kill him immediately, lots of explosions, cheesy one-liners, and impossible gadgets. Anyone who even bothers to see a Bond film with different expectations is deluding herself. That said, some Bond films are better than others.
The World Is Not Enough, for example, is one of the worst Bond films... possibly solely because of the fact that Denise Richards is in it. So, as far as Bond films go,
Die Another Day is one of the better ones. The beginning of the film is a little bit different from other ones because Bond goes through a series of (literal) tortures. The special effects are quite good for the most part, even though there are a couple of
really fake-looking moments. John Cleese and Judi Dench, as always, add a little humor and spice to the mix, and, for some reason, the filmmakers decided to cast Asian-Americans as Koreans. No, it's not a terribly new thing to do, but the Asian-Americans here don't fake their accents when they speak English--they sound like normal Americans. Ordinarily, this would be a good thing, if they were
playing Asian-Americans. Since they play Koreans, you'd think their Korean would be good (D.L. assures me it is
not!) and their English would be bad. Oh well. Final verdict: Worth a watch if you're into Bond or even slightly into Bond; hate Bond, avoid the movie.
--A.Y.