Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones return — they’re both pretty good actors. Banderas is especially good, given the right role, and this one fits quite well at times.
Rufus Sewell is impressive as the main antagonist here.
Adrian Alonso does alright as Zorro’s son too.
Inkeeping with the original, the actions scenes in this one are a bit slapstick and feature classical music similar to Indiana Jones in terms of notes and insruments but wildly disorganised and unharmonious in comparison. The action is a bit hollow and longwinded early on too, once they get into the swordfighting which is weird since this is gun country. Fortunately it’s over after a few dull minutes, then we get a nice stunt and a bit of humour and a bit of plot.
Although this movie is a bit one dimensional, it still has decent acting, script and general screenplay, so I give it a Bang Average rating, which is not bad — only one step down from the original — although this one would probably be rated slighly lower still, if viewed in isolation, since much of the entertainment value stems here from it being a follow-on to the story of the original.
The ending is not terrible except for the constant loud and annoying uncoordinated noise which lasts for at least 10 minutes during the battle scene near the end. Highly fast-forwardable. And after that, there’s a longwinded mushy bit of boring drama — also highly skippable.
Anthony Hopkins plays an old Zorro here, and Antonio Banderas plays the new one who Hopkins trains. Catherine Zeta-Jones stars as the lead female and while neither Banderas nor Hopkins are quite like Sean Connery, and Catherine isn’t the one being trained up here, I feel like this movie still somewhat inspired Catherine’s duet with Sean Connery in Entrapment the following year.
This movie features some slightly nice training scenes although they don’t last long. It’s got nothing on Kickboxer or No Retreat No Surrender in that department.
The action is not bad in this movie although it’s a bit slapstick.
Although it can be a bit slow at times, the plot generally unfolds quite well to keep us intrigued and engaged with the help of high quality acting and screenplay too.
Overall I rate this movie Above Average since it’s got a good amount of goodness but hardly to an outstanding level and it’s quite diluted by the length of the movie.
The classical music in the battle scene near the end is reminiscent of Indiana Jones, just without the rhythm — it’s a bit random & messy but using similar notes & instruments.
If you loved this movie, you’ll be pleased to know there’s a sequel — Legend Of Zorro (2005) — which sees the return of Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The first 10 minutes are cleverly designed to build a backstory to this movie, and while it starts off a bit messy, Tom Cruise‘s presence sharpens it up nicely. By 10 minutes in it’s clear Tom Cruise is playing Major William Cage, some top marketing guy for the military who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty, and upon attempting to blackmail a general, finds himself railroaded to the frontline with his rank stripped and nobody believing his story.
By 20 minutes in, the Major is getting his first taste of battle on the front line and it’s a bit of a nightmare, but it’s well executed, and it soon becomes something quite intriguing, when 5 minutes later he dies and his day restarts and everything becomes Déjà Vu. Then 5 minutes later still – now half an hour in – the day restarts again, so it’s now the third instance of the same day. This time he’s less confused, and tries very hard to prove himself and alert everyone what’s going on, but fails only ends up with a taped up mouth. He also tries fighting the aliens proactively using his limited foresight, but dies pretty quickly. Then we see him die quickly again. Then on the fifth attempt he tries talking to the lead female – the Angel of Verdun, Sergeant Rita Vrataski, played by Emily Blunt – and it’s already clear that he’s been here many times before, the movie’s just skipped several iterations. One the next full reset, we see him try a different tact. He subtly proves his strange abilities to predict the future, and assures everyone he’s not trying to avoid the war – he’s now acting enthusiastic and friendly but not controversial at all – this is of course a rouse to gain everyone’s trust so they all lower their guard and he’s free to do what he needs to do – this time it’s meeting up with the woman who told him to come find her when he wakes up. It seems she has the same ability as he does, and knows all about it. There’s a few nice touches of humour here too.
By 50 minutes in, William Cage (Tom Cruise) and Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt) have met Rita’s friend, a top scientist who understands how this alien enemy operates, and what’s causing the day to keep resetting, and everything becomes clear, or at least as clear as it ever will be. Rita starts training Tom in combat skills, which he’s gravely lacking, and she tells him he needs to make sure he dies every day, else he’s out of the game.
It gets a bit tense, gritty and uncomfortable towards the end of the first hour, and it’s safe to say, most of the fun is already gone now. But there’s still nearly an hour left to go. For this reason, although this movie showed great potential to be arguably the best action hero movie ever made, in the end I’m going to settle for a rating of Very Good, which is no mean feat of course.
After a solid 20 minutes of gritty drama and uncomfortable action, the mood picks up with half an hour to go as the Major & Sergeant come up with a new plan and head to HQ to get what they need. Unfortunately though, this refreshing uplift only lasts a few minutes before it gets gritty again and doesn’t let up till the very end. Nevertheless, we can’t discount the great entertainment value of the first hour, making this a Very Good action hero movie on a par with Denzel’s equally great movie The Equalizer from the same year.
This is the last of Pierce Brosnan‘s four James Bond movies, and the one which made the production team conclude that something needs to change. I don’t disagree that something needed to change, but they changed it in totally the wrong direction for my taste. I can’t stand Daniel Craig personally. Brosnan makes a great Bond compared to him. Still, the mass market of soppy drama fans seem to approve of Craig, even if they are a totally new audience and the loyal niche market of slick action hero movie fans who tolerated Brosnan in the hopes of someone better coming soon have become completely disenchanted by the whole Bond brand now.
Die Another Day gets off to a poor start, with an awful attempt at remixing two classic Bond tunes into one piece of deafening noise within the first 30 seconds of this movie. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie, since the musical direction is pretty wack throughout.
This leads straight into an extravagant surfing scene that’s hard to understand the context of until it’s all over. This makes a change from the popular ski chase scenes, such as the one that opened one of Roger Moore’s best movies, The Spy Who Loved Me. I’m not saying there’s anything terribly wrong with not knowing what’s going on until an action scene is over, but it’s a bit unusual for a Bond movie, and probably not the best idea for this genre. We can’t even see anyone’s faces while they’re surfing, so it could be anyone (although obviously Brosnan didn’t get his feet wet in the filming of that scene). I guess we’re just expected to admire the surfing for a minute while waiting patiently to find out who it is and why they’re doing it. There’s a much better surfing scene 90 minutes in, as Bond escapes an avalanche designed to kill him, and rides the tsunami wave that follows.
Fortunately, this soon turns into some interesting scenes, as James steals a suitcase full of diamonds and impersonates the previous owner, pretending to be an arms dealer in North Korea. James’s disguise is unsuccessful, so he attempts to escape, wrecking a bunch of hovercrafts and seemingly killing the general’s son, so he gets taken in for waterboarding & interrogation. General Moon is played adequately by Kenneth Tsang, his son (Colonel Moon) was played alright by Will Yun Lee, his son’s main assistant (Zao) who Bond goes after once released (since his freedom was traded for Zao’s) was played alright by Rick Yune.
Then we get the theme tune by Madonna, who also takes a on minor role in this movie (as a fencing instructor called Verity). It’s not the best James Bond theme tune by any means, but is certainly one of the catchiest. It’s basically just a cheap uncultured pop song that’s liable to stick in your head sometimes, especially if you’re a James Bond fan, and I dare say that makes it about equal to Madonna’s best work.
We meet a few good characters in the first half an hour, then we meet the main woman in this movie – Halle Berry. She immediately spends the night with James and their romantic scenes are quite classless, inkeeping with the poor humour throughout the Brosnan era of James Bond. The following and preceding scenes are not bad though. A lot of fuss was made on TV around the time of this movie coming out, about the appearance of Halle Berry as she comes out the water and meets James Bond for the first time. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not unattractive – she’s above average for a Bond girl, and not terribly far from the best of them – but the only reason she swings her hips so wildly is to compensate for the lack of natural width in her hips which would roll plenty within her natural unexaggerated stride if there were really anything to rave about.
Brosnan is also noticeably carrying a belly in this movie, while looking generally worse for wear due to his age and his untoned physique – I’m guessing this contributed to him being let go in favour of Daniel Craig who was younger and trained hard to achieve a good physique even though his personality is nothing like what Bond should be. Brosnan’s demeanour is a bit closer to the mark, in how it’s not the polar opposite of what we want, but it’s a bit dead & dry still – far from ideal for this role.
A third of the way in, as James enters Zao’s new lair, we see a rotating mirrored wall, probably inspired by Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon from 1973, much like the similar set in Roger Moore’s The Man With The Golden Gun in 1974 – since that one came out just one year after Enter The Dragon, the similarities are clearly far from coincidental.
The swordfighting scene was pretty good, after James joins the fencing club and meets Madonna’s character Verity agrees to a challenge from the main man in the club which starts off quite sporting with all the kit then comes lethal with real swords and no protection. It’s quite obvious sometimes where the stuntmen fill in for Pierce Brosnan though, as the faster scenes are very fast with his back to the camera then become terribly laboured when we see his face. This reflects his lack of real swordfighting ability of course, and probably also his lack of general martial arts acumen and even athletic capability.
Half way in, we get better acquainted with the second Bond girl in this movie – Miranda Frost played by Rosamund Pike (who also played the main baddie’s wife in Jack Reacher), who we briefly met earlier at the fencing club where Madonna’s character (Verity, the instructor) said Miranda was the most talented fencer in the club. Rosamund Pike has to be one of the least attractive Bond girls of all time, although due to her very prominent jawline I’m sure she appeals very much to certain types of people. To call her a tomboy would be an understatement. She also has a very bland demeanour and a face full of whitewashed makeup which creates a certain style that probably matches the role she’s playing quite well, however unappealing it may be. Having said that, she does make an interesting contrast with Halle Berry.
James’s car in this movie goes a level beyond any Bond car before, by being completely invisible. He can even sit inside it, and watch things happen around him, with people nearby being oblivious to his presence.
We know a James Bond villain loves a satellite weapon, and this movie’s villain is no different. The main villain, on the brains side, is Sir Gustav Graves, played alright by Toby Stephens, and he has a satellite that he uses to shine light on certain parts of the world, which can be used to assist agriculture in poor countries, but it can also be used as a deadly heat gun. According to the plot, Gustav Graves is actually Colonel Moon after a DNA changing operation.
Action Hero Movies