It was disappointing. And sad. And Berry Berry bad.
Halle Berry’s role in Die Another Day, released in 2002, was particularly disappointing, in large part because it was Berry’s very next film role following the Oscar winner’s Academy Award winning work in Monster’s Ball (2001).
At 35 minutes, 52 seconds into the film, the Oscar winning temptress makes her grand appearance, accompanied by a dramatic musical score which rises to crescendo as Jinx (Halle Berry), our sizzling seductress, emerges -- open-mouthed -- from the seas of Havana, sexily clad in a come-hither orange bikini. The Oscar winner enchantress revealed. Her purpose: to entice. And who knew, as we watched her pat herself dry, that the white man would have her -- in less than three minutes?
When Berry surfaced I said to myself the obvious: “Wow, what a true, genuine beauty.” That passing thought was quickly replaced by another, more lingering thought -– embarrassment for her.
Halle Berry, working those hips, saunters up the beachside steps… stops and then turns around… so he can see her… so he can get a full backside view. And there he was… Bond… James Bond (Pierce Brosnan), sipping on a Mojito, watching the siren. And then, the contrived double entendre. He quips, “Magnificent view.”
Poor Halle… reduced to a white man’s magnificent view. And she pats dry her open mouth. I figure her mouth is eternally open throughout much of the film because the filmmakers want us to want to imagine something in it -- Bond’s dick, no doubt -- and/or his tongue. Was that the director’s doing? Perhaps. Or was that Halle Berry’s doing -- believing it would stamp her as the fiery sexpot that a James Bond girl is supposed to be?
In that scene, she sips the Mojito -- the Mojito of a stranger. James Bond is a complete stranger -- a white, tall, dark-haired, handsome, aging, sun-spotted, cool-as-a-mof*cka, stranger. Ooooooooh. Sexy. In this same meet and greet scene, Berry spoke her lines with a manufactured swagger that made them shallow and often ridiculous. The scene ends with her open mouth and fades into the next scene... to her open legs -- presumably. We never see her spread legs but can assume they must be since she is sexing him. Jinx is in bed with the whitis malis having sex with Bond at 38:24 -- not three minutes after we first meet her during their ridiculously juvenile meet-and-greet scene, which was marked by dreadful dialog).
Next, we see Jinx engage in a mind-boggling display of sensational secret agent maneuvers. These would include: murder, arson, breaking into a computer to uncover information about a secret DNA transformation procedure, hotwiring a bomb using a cell phone, sprinting barefoot up hills, shooting at helicopters, and jumping off cliffs.
After a long absence in the film and in a strangely hysterical shot, Jinx reappears in Iceland, emerging from a red Thunderbird, with her mouth open… again. Later, Jinx attends a gala event at the Iceland Ice Palace, where she delivers more silly one-liners. In keeping with her undercover status, Jinx is now Miss Swift, a journalist at Space and Technology magazine.
Miss Swift does her secret agent stuff and descends into the Iceland compound of adversary, Gustav Graves. Captured immediately, and with her forced agent-face on, she responds to the electrical charges of the taser-like device her torturer uses. Zap! Scream (or squawk... or coo... whatever). Zap! Scream. Zap! Jinx’s captor demands to know, “Who sent you?” to which she responds, “Yo mama. And she told me to tell you she’s really disappointed in you.”
{I damn near died when she said this.}
{I cringed in embarrassment.}
Eventually, James Bond saves Jinx. And we officially learn that she, herself, is an NSA agent and that she and Bond are hunting the same thing. Later on, Jinx, on the verge of drowning, is again saved by Bond –- via mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, of course. Cough. Cough. She’s okay.
Further along in the film, aboard a cargo plane Jinx busies herself by running, sliding down ropes and chutes, punching, shooting; yet she is still the hotness. Face still on. Hair still good. No sweating. And at one point Jinx pilots the plane! On what eventually becomes an out-of-control disintegrating aircraft, Jinx ends up in a catfight with nemesis, Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike). In the scene, which features Berry’s quintessential peculiar and contrived facial expressions Jinx, skilled in the martial arts, eventually murders Frost.
And the love scene at the end…
Off-screen we hear our beguiling vamp whisper, “Wait. Don’t pull it out. I’m not finished with it yet.” And then the camera pans to Jinx and Bond, with James Bond atop her, and we see that what Jinx is referring to is not a penis, but an exquisite, flawless diamond resting inside her navel.
White man’s fantasy. Sorry, white males, but it is for this reason and this reason only that we heard those words. The strength, need and demands of the fantasy superseded logic, reason and creativity and surrendered to the idiocy of that dialog. So there she was… the Oscar winner… churning out yet another juvenile, asinine one-liner –- as she had throughout the film.
Oscar Winner. Eye Candy. Oscar Winner. Eye Candy. Oscar Winner. Eye Candy.
Halle Berry was dreadful in the film. Not all of it. Not every moment. But most of it. Just bad acting. Of course, it wasn’t the world’s greatest role. She was a Bond girl, after all. But I firmly believe another actress – more skilled – could have done the role more justice.
I actually enjoyed Rosamund Pike’s performance far more than Berry’s. [Oops, sorry; no need to compare and contrast here – but since I’m on the subject, I think Pike had better lines, but she was the better actress, too.]
I was saddened for Berry, since just months before the release of Die Another Day Berry stood before us on that Oscar stage and received the highest honor any motion picture actor could ever receive.
And then to be reduced to this.
Though she was perfectly awful in this movie, she sho looked good. That’s certainly all anybody else involved in the film cared about. Maybe that’s all Halle Berry cared about. I thought Halle Berry's decision to accept this role was unwise. It could’ve been worse, though. It could’ve been Catwoman (released in 2004). Yikes!
The End.
P.S. -- And if anybody is wondering -- I know Halle Berry is bi-racial. But I think -- and I could be wrong -- I think Halle Berry identifies as a woman of color; a black woman.
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Oh, there are other questions we can ask, y’all. But the article is not about these things:
- This is what she was offered. It wasn’t her fault.
- She should not have accepted this role.
- She should have accepted this role. It’s work.
- The industry made her do this.
- James Bond films are big deals. She would have been a fool to turn it down.
- She had to continue to ride her Oscar wave.
- She should have exercised restraint, carefully picking proper vehicles for herself.
- She had free will. She chose to do this. She wanted to do this.
- This was all that was available to her.
Etc. etc.
Perhaps these things merit discussion. Perhaps not.
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