Of course, I grew up with James Bond and like every other red-blooded male I couldn't see what Bond could do that I couldn't do better. So, I sat in my stadium seat expecting to see another set of ideas for me to try out this weekend in the form of ...Die Another Day.

Now, before we get to the movie, how about that title? I'm sitting here typing and I can barely remember it because of its title's similarity to the last 6 Bond releases. Seems that if you take the words Golden, Die, Tomorrow, Never, Again and World you'd be able to generate the next Bond movie. Perhaps, Never Die Again Tomorrow in a Golden World? Not since the days of Stephen Segal have a series of movies been so consistant in title construction. Anyway, someone needs to make a web generator for this. I call "not it."

But despite the title, this wasn't looking like your mama's James Bond movie. First of all, Bond gets captured in the opening sequence and tortured for 14 months. Although the torture montage involves beatings, cold water, fire and electrodes (all of which are turned into naked women courtesy of some nifty CGI), I found it funnier to think that our hero was being tortured by the Madonna title music. Anyhoo, in the end we come to find out that James Bond has been let go by MI-6 for well, basically, being bad at his job. We also come to find out that Pierce Brosnan is a lot hairier under that tuxedo than one would suspect.

Bond escapes from his mistrusting employers and sets off after the lone surviving character with a name that survived the opening sequence, Zao. Did I mention the bad guys were North Koreans? I think the James Bond crew should thank President Bush for defining the good and the bad guys so clearly for us. Anyway, Bond finds some sympathetic ears and is aided in his attempts to track Zao. Along the way he meets Halle Berry, an American agent who's mastered the art of emerging from an ocean without being discernably wet. Within the span of moments and a few horrible, horrible innuendos, she and James consumate their acquaintance by having sex.

Soon we find out that Zao is just the tool for an evil red-headed supergenius businessman. Now, being a red-head myself, I should point out to the rest of you melatonin-heads that we're all evil geniuses, and none of us are to be trusted. None! That being said, the plot becomes tremendously traditional at this point. Redhead Supergenius has the world's largest tanning satellite (obviously spurred by jealousy at not being able to actually become tan, himself). Oh, wait, that's not a nice satellite, it's actually a Dr. Evil style "laser".

Somewhere along the way, the writers find an evil blonde for James to have sex with. She of course ends up betraying him. And then of course we find out that Bond did a really bad job at the beginning, because his original assassination target is still alive! But that's thankfully taken care of by a reasonably non-ludicrous evil boss death. One liners are delivered, vodka is consumed, expensive cars are destroyed and only the good guys survive. Everything a bond movie was meant to provide.

Throughout the movie, Bond is ogled successively by North Korean, Indian, Chinese, Cuban, American and British women. Some even ogle after finding out that Bond is apparently some kind of were-creature with a hormone problem. Some of the innuendos and one-liners are so groanworthy as to induce an entire audience to audible tribute. In the end, remember, I'm just a jealous supergenius who can't tan.

So, Die Another Day is a passable way to spend your time waiting for the second Lord of the Rings installment to arrive. It's okay for a Bond flick, but this cynical man longs for the days of Connery and titles like The Man with The Golden Gun. I'd give it 2-1/2 stars...with the 1/2 star alotted for the use of ornithology-fellacio humor.