Bond is back

Bond is back, and Die Another Day, the 20th installment in the 40-year-old series, promises a Bond movie truly made for Bond-movie buffs.

Pierce Brosnan returns as James Bond in Day, which, while being possibly the best Bond film made since For Your Eyes Only, is a fitting homage to the most-famous secret agent ever. As always, the stunts are a hair over the top and Bond's quips are just as pithy as they were when Sean Connery was using them, but what's a Bond flick for if not the reasonable suspension of disbelief for the sake of a good time?

The plot goes a little something like this: after not quite making it out of a sticky situation and spending more than a year in a North Korean prison because of a betrayal, MI-6 trades Bond for the man who put him there. He comes back to an agency that believes he gave away secrets under pain of torture and he vows to exact revenge on the men who captured him, with or without MI-6. His travels take him from London to Havana to Iceland in search of the man he was traded for -- who has been turned into a creepy genetic clean slate -- and the person who originally betrayed him in North Korea.

True Bond fans in the audience will recognize quick references to previous movies in the series throughout the film. Halle Berry's entrance features the belt Ursula Andress wore in Dr. No and Brosnan pokes fun at the jet-pack used in Thunderball, just to name a few. After two mediocre attempts in Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough, the makers of Day finally put together everything we've come to expect from a Bond movie -- exotic locales, fast cars,and bundles of really cool gadgets, including an Aston Martin Vanquish that can "vanish."

Though the old Bond formula has never failed to thrill, Day finally carves a niche for the latest leading man. Brosnan has found his inner Bond, and it isn't Connery's Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This 007 is a little sleeker, a little edgier and a little less polite. In other words, less gambling on cards, more gambling on sword fights. What's really important, though, is that Brosnan has finally found comfort in his tux.

As for the others, Berry's American spy, Jinx, flaunts an apt combination of butt-kicking, sexiness and sass that plays on the actress' strongest qualities. She is, in a word, Bond -- only very female. Toby Stevens fills the part of Bond's villain and doppleganger; Gustav Graves convincingly provides the perfect outlet for those who, like many Bond girls, hate what 007 represents, but can't help but love him anyway.

Loads of stunts, gunfire, explosions, fighting, flamethrowers and you-name-it-this-movie's-got-it action leave no choice but to be absorbed by pure, unadulterated eye-candy. From the opening dueling hovercrafts to the chase between a gadget-laden Aston Martin and Jaguar across an ice field, Day explodes across the screen from start to finish. Like they say at monster-truck rallies, "We'll sell you the whole seat but you'll only need the edge."

The credits didn't lie. James Bond did return. Day excites as the first or 20th movie in the series, and lives up to everything Bond fans have come to expect from the man with a license to kill.