BY LARRY CARROLL | James Bond turns forty this year. The character has appeared in twenty films and in doing so he's chugged enough martinis to leave the cast of Swingers in awe, laid down with so many women that he should have bedsores, introduced himself (last name first, of course) more often than a politician at a fundraiser, and dodged so many bullets that it's a wonder he doesn't stand at an angle. Bond has done it all, and he's done it over and over and over again.

Which brings us to the problem that the franchise faces as it enters its fifth decade: how do you keep things fresh? Everyone knows the hallmarks of the Bond franchise - the girls, the cars, the martinis, the sinister villains looking to take over the world - but it can only be done so many times before it becomes by-the-numbers. And, as adequate as the last few Bond movies have been, the sad fact is that they were just that: adequate.

Die Another Day, however, shows us that Bond might still have enough left in him for another twenty films. Director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors) and a producing team that includes longtime keepers of the Bond flame Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, have magnificently balanced the film so that it keeps true to the Bond legend, makes reference to the classic films that preceded it, but also injects a new zest to it all. The end result is the best of the Pierce Brosnan James Bond films to date.

The film starts out, boldly, with the super suave spy being captured, tortured (over what might be the best Bond title sequence yet) and imprisoned in North Korea for eighteen months. Hungry, exhausted and sporting a Count of Monte Cristo beard, he finally gets out, not by using some high-tech gizmo to escape in a hail of gunplay but, instead, by being released after he essentially begs his captors to kill him. Brought back to England, he is disavowed and told to turn in his license to kill. This is not the James Bond we've become accustomed to.

The mission that gets Bond imprisoned comes to a head in a harrowing hovercraft chase over the landmines of a demilitarized zone. Not only is it an homage to the boat adventure Bond had in Live and Let Die, but it's also thrilling to watch on its own merits. Nobody is dumb enough to think that James Bond is actually going to die, but what the great Bond films did was somehow manage to trick the audience, if just for a second, into thinking he wasn't going to make it. This has been accomplished with less frequency over the years, to the point where Bond has often been turned into Wile E. Coyote lately, falling off hot-air balloons but still emerging with every hair in place. Not here, however - Tamahori bangs his hero up and throws him around, intelligently building the chase to a feverish pitch that starts things out with a bang.

That chase, the imprisonment and Bond's subsequent stay in a spy hospital might be the best twenty minutes of this franchise since the Roger Moore days. After this point the film is still very good, but the originality factor isn't quite as high. Bond goes on the lam to find a mysterious evildoer named Zao (Rick Yune, The Fast and the Furious), who has diamonds embedded in his face from an earlier confrontation the two men had. This leads him to Cuba, where he encounters a sexy admirer named Jinx (Halle Berry). Berry's character is clearly cut from the same mold as Dr. No's Honey Ryder (right down to the bathing suit), and you know that she's not your typical Bond girl when she walks up to the spy and practically forces him into the bedroom. The dialogue between the two of them is absolutely drowning in sexual innuendo, and it accomplishes the primary goal in any Bond film - to make the men envious. What better way to make a man wish they were James Bond than to have Halle Berry look at his nether region and seductively remark, "That's a mouthful"?

Berry provides a welcomed distraction from the plot details, which are as contradictory and nonsensical as they are in most Bond films. Zao and his boss, who may or may not be the Richard Branson-esque billionaire adventurer Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens, Possession), have a plan involving secret identities that plays like something out of another lame Mission Impossible movie. And the fact that their quest for world domination revolves around a machine that's going to go into space and control the weather? C'mon, that gimmick is such a bad guy cliche that "The Simpsons" even had Mr. Burns do it a couple of seasons ago.

This movie works, however, and there are two reasons why: Berry and Tamahori. Berry's contribution is the more obvious, but the grace with which the director hits upon all the touchstones of the film series on his own terms cannot be understated. He brings a distinctive, thoughtful flavor to Bond conventions that lesser directors have often just gone through the motions with: 007's scenes with recurring characters Q (John Cleese), M (Judi Dench) and Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) are playful and capitalize on the well-established relationship he has with each; the gadgets in the car are used in ways that are extreme but not campy; the fight scenes are creative and involve the environment of the combatants (particularly the savage swordfight between Brosnan and Stephens); even the evil ice fortress is its own spectacle, yet still owes something to the lairs of madmen who have long-since been snuffed out by 007.

The flaws of the film lie with the aforementioned head-scratcher of a script (I actually overheard one critic leaving the film who completely misunderstood the bad guy's true identity) and some poor casting choices. Yune makes for an intimidating, physically distinct villain in the vein of Jaws and Oddjob and it's a good thing he does, because Stephens is about as vanilla as they come. The role of Graves should have been filled with a more commanding presence, someone who could break free of the Bond-bad guy shackles. That doesn't happen with Stephens' by-the-book characterization, however. BBC television star Rosamund Pike, as fellow spy Miranda Frost, also brings little to her character besides the appropriate physical beauty of a Bond girl. The casting decision that really slows the film to a grinding halt, however, is a cameo by Madonna as a fencing instructor. It would be impossible for me to write anything here that hasn't already been said about the singer's inability to act - but when she spits out the double entendres in her scene it doesn't rev your engine so much as it makes you want to go get a penicillin shot.

On the opposite side of the coin is Michael Madsen (Donnie Brasco) who, as U.S. Intelligence Agent Falco, gets little else to do but sit at a desk and tell Jinx what mission to go on next. He might not have the greatest range as an actor, but Madsen does possess a certain cool that makes him a throwback to the days of McQueen, Mitchum, Bronson and the rest, and it's a shame that he's so wasted here. Watching Toby Stephens struggle to be a challenge for Bond, one can't help but wish that Mr. Blonde would pull the straight razor out of his boot and go after James himself.

But despite these shortcomings, Die Another Day is like sitting behind the wheel of Bond's Aston Martin V12 Vanquish - it's a great ride. Bond might be getting older, but this film shows that there is still some life in the old fellow after all.

GRADE: B+