©2002 DANJAQ LLC and UNITED ARTISTS CORP. HANGING AROUND: Die Another Day finds our hero in a tight spot in North Korea

Posted Sunday, Nov 3, 2002; 2.02 p.m. GMT
He's not dead yet. Broccoli and Wilson made sure of that by paying Brosnan a reported $15 million per picture to stay in the role. He was almost the Bond that got away: in 1986, Brosnan had to turn down an offer to play the role because he couldn't get out of his Remington Steele TV contract. But he was ready to take the part when asked again in 1994. After Roger Moore's disarmingly jocular and almost geriatric Bond, and then Timothy Dalton's brooding, I'm-really-a-serious-actor Bond, the debonair Irishman has reinvigorated the old spy and even shows signs of making the character his own. Although he delivers Bond-mots with requisite panache, Brosnan tends to play the part straighter and steelier than Moore did, and he's plainly more comfortable in 007's skin than Dalton. On the beachside set in Cádiz, he slips into and out of the role, puffing a Cuban cigar all the while. It may not seem so, but playing Bond "is bloody hard work," he says during a break from filming. "Trying to hit that note correctly — with just the right amount of tongue-in-cheek, yet also trying to play him with a certain reality — can be tricky."

Brosnan's eight-year delay helped him build a better Bond. Age weathered some of his pretty-boy sheen; a few more lines on his face, a touch more flesh at his jawline, and he began to look like a man who'd survived a few too many fights and a few too many cocktails. By now, his fourth time in the role, "the part has become second nature in some respects," he says. "I've grown into it — or at least I'd like to think I have."

Die Another Day gives Brosnan a chance to stretch a bit, by working an emotional terrain usually reserved for bad guys in their final moments of pain and despair. Betrayed during an investigation into diamond smuggling, Bond is jailed and tortured by the North Koreans in what might be the first Bond scene to qualify as harrowing. Battered, bruised, bearded and, yes, even long-haired — we've never seen the man like this. Naturally, he eventually wins freedom and makes his way back to London, only to learn that he's been stripped of his 00 status. His quest for redemption — and to unmask the traitor — takes him into the arms of three women and the crosshairs of Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), an audacious diamond tycoon bent on (what else?) world domination. (The writers had the good sense to ditch the small-potatoes bad guys of recent films, like the one bent on conquering ... the media sector.) Bond's trials, at the hands of both his captors and the agency that loses faith in him, reveal traits that fans of Fleming's novels will recognize. They "bring out his vulnerable side," says writer Wade. "But you'll see a lot of resilience."

If the thought of Bond on a mission of self-discovery makes you queasy, relax. As guardians of the 007 legacy, Broccoli and Wilson won't mess with — or let anyone else mess with — the formula. They constantly field suggestions to tweak the franchise, but most times, "Barbara and I have to say no — to casting someone inappropriate, to diminishing the role of Bond, to making it into a buddy picture," says Wilson. "The principle is what Cubby said: 'Don't screw it up.'"

"A Bond movie has conventions: girls, gadgets, action," says Tamahori, a New Zealander best known for the 1994 Maori domestic drama Once Were Warriors. "It's not that you must stick with them, but if you don't, you may be doing the film — and the genre — a disservice." So he gives us the staples: action, exotic settings, a good-vs.-evil showdown and Bond girls (Berry and pale, slinky British newcomer Rosamund Pike). Enlivening these elements are blasts from the past in honor of the franchise's 40th anniversary — nods to Bond history, from Berry's sexy play on Andress to Stephens' Union Jack parachute to cameos by memorable gadgets (Thunderball's jet pack, Octopussy's Crocodile minisubmarine). Audiences won't doubt for a moment that they're watching a Bond movie.

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