But fans would ultimately be disappointed when it was announced that Singer wouldn’t be returning for a third film, opting to take the reigns on the long-delayed Superman reboot. And while X-Men: The Last Stand would prove even more successful at the box office than its predecessors, many considered it a step back creatively. For all the build-up towards the introduction of The Phoenix, the character ended up taking a back seat to Magneto and a handful of nameless mutant henchmen. The death of characters like Cyclops and Professor Xavier didn’t sit well with fans either. The X-Men Franchise would take another blow with the lackluster Wolverine spin-off. And Singer’s Superman Returns only aggravated the fanboy blues, turning out to be both critically and financially disappointing, and leaving Singer’s involvement in that franchise–in fact, the whole Superman franchise–in doubt.

Which brings us to the recent announcement of Bryan Singer directing the upcoming X-Men: First Class. Is this a reason for X fans to rejoice, or, with so many post-Singer comic movie franchises taking off and garnering massive critical and box office success, is it call for a resounding meh? Can Singer get the X franchise–and his own comic con credibility–back on track, or have we already witnessed the fall of the mutants?

» 1. Can Singer recapture the magic of the first two films?

This week, Halle Berry’s Storm is in our cross hair as we run down ten of our personal replacements from the hottest black actresses, singers, and models working today. Shameless? Of course it is.

What did YOU think? Talk about it in our community, or choose your top ten choices in our poll.

Now, I’m sure most of you have noticed that I usually try to spotlight lesser known lovelies in this feature, and it’s always nice to be the one driving the bandwagon as opposed to jumping on once it’s already started rolling. I made my love of Amber Rose known long before Kanye put her on game. But I figured since Halle’s been such a hot topic amongst the male collective of PCS this week (Check out the ongoing discussion here.), I’d show her some love (as if she needed it!). Not that there aren’t plenty of 40-plus actresses out there still killin’ it, but Halle just seems to be a whole other level for some reason. She certainly made news with her sensual liplock with actor Jaime Foxx, and she’s even got her own song and dance, courtesy of rapper Hurricane Chris! Damn an Oscar, you ain’t nobody until you’re immortalized in song! Ask Robert DeNiro what the high point of his career is, and dollars to doughnuts, he’ll proudly admit that it’s when Bananarama’s “Robert DeNiro’s Waiting” came out back in the 80s! Halle’s song is so popular, Mr. Chris recently performed it for the Louisiana House of Representatives!! Take that, Meryll Streep!!!

Feature: D+

The nail that could have been driven into the 007 franchise could have been hammered down at the end of Die Another Day and no one would have even cared. Thankfully someone did care as we anticipate the latest James Bond which has evolved to a darker, more faithful adaption to Ian Fleming’s pulp novels. In light of Quantum of Solace, all of the excellent DVD releases are getting upgraded to blu-ray, even Die Another Day. Pierce Brosnan would suit up in the bow tie one last time, a 007 stint that lasted seven years and four films. In that run, there was good and there was Die Another Day.

On a mission to kill a rogue colonel selling weapons for blood diamonds, Bond is exposed as a spy in North Korea . Bond is captured, abandoned and tortured for a year and then exchanged for another prisoner and has his 00 title suspended. At multiple corners of the Earth, including Cuba, London, and Reykjavik meets an curvy American spy, Jinx (Halle Berry) a fellow agent with a cold shoulder, Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike) and a rich British mogul, Gustav Graves (Toby Stevens) who is in the business of, you guessed it, diamonds. Oh but wait, he has more surprises, believe me. All of that is secondary to a much deadlier plot to unleash the ultimate weapon in space that can beam down destruction to our planet below. Bond plants to exact revenge (huh?), save the day, and of course, get the babe.

In the advent of the Matrix trilogy and XXX, action films of the late 90′s to early 2000′s had too much CGI without any purpose. It seemed as if no one wanted to spend money on a good script just on action scenes on top of more action scenes. Even the title sequences have too many computerized graphics. Madonna’s electronic turn may have been a rebirth for her sound but it’s a big mismatch with James Bond and the font choice looked more appropriate for a home video. And I have to say it, the composed score is just as bad.

Lee Tamahori was chosen to direct based on his decorated films (Once Were Warriors and The Edge) and hopes were set very high. It raked in a ridiculous bank–that can’t be denied–but if you know a good Bond film, ten minutes in, you’ll know this is not one of them. I think the filmmakers set out to make an epic film–got caught up in what computer graphics could do–and the result was an epic mess. All verisimilitude is thrown out the window and the thought of Bond single-handedly stopping a giant satellite laser beaming down is far-fetched, even for 007. This was a James Bond film, right? Not Star Wars? Actually it feels more like Spaceballs because you’re left laughing at the end when two fights break out on a cargo plane, while a huge gaping hole sucks everyone down to their death. Oh and there’s that huge 50 mile wide laser to avoid too. A film’s bad when you’re left with more questions than answers and all I could say at the end was, “Huh-What?” “How?” and “Why?”

PRESENTATION: B+

The packaging is a standard case in a cardboard slipcase. There are two stickers that cover the slipcase, one of which is a promotion for e-Movie Cash towards the new Quantum of Solace film. The problem though is when you pull the label off to reveal the redemption code, part of the ink of the code and the adhesive stays behind. I wound up using the the adhesive of the other sticker to clean up the case, a tedious and unnecessary annoyance.

As in all of the newer James Bond releases, the same menu design is carried through with a modern and sleek appearance. A spiraling gun barrel frames the screen as silhouettes of shapely women and clips scroll by. The navigation has a spy theme with choices like “Language Decryption” for “Audio”, and “Initiate Mission” for “Play.” Moving within each selection like the extras can be a little cumbersome moving up and down and then to the left to get out of that nav bar, and “Play All” is only an option that shows up some of the time. Once you’ve viewed a special it automatically moves down the menu when your natural instinct is to move to the next selection. Another awkward default is that in the commentary selections it starts at the last track and you have to move up to see the rest. White Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.

AUDIO: A+

There are three audio tracks, the lossless 5.1 DTS-HD and compared to the older films, this film is a treat. This lossless audio track offers a wide range of big barrel boom and aggressive, active effects that will have your head spinning in your couch. Music roars loudly and anytime there’s a laser on screen (and there’s a lot of them in this film) the buzzing is particularly loud. If there’s anything bad to say about the audio I’d say that it goes so low that the soft spoken dialogue is difficult to pick up without having to increase the volume. A French 5.1 Dolby Digital track and Spanish 2.0 Stereo track are also available.

VIDEO: B+

Once a sore point, the transfer is now a strength. MGM delivers a 2.40:1 1080p transfer with AVC MPEG-4 encoded. The great thing about blu-ray is that the poor effort put forth in the DVDs can be erased. Marred with edge enhancement and pixelation, the DVD drove home theater nuts crazy.Tha absence of artificial “extras” allows us to see what is, actually, a good looking film. Blacks look good, as do the different array of textures seen throughout the film. All of the swirling colors and icy glaciers in Reykjavik come through clearly. In the fencing scene, the leather in Madonna’s outfit and the sculptures that decorate show more colors than just black. The paintings leading to Q’s lair are visibly clear. There’s still a teeny bit of edge enhancement that exists throughout the film, as seen in the opening action sequence but this isn’t as big a problem as the DVD.

EXTRAS: C+

Like all of the Bond blu-rays, they’ve transplanted all of the extras from the recent DVD releases. They are in standard definition, widescreen and 2.0 Dolby Stereo. Each of these Bond films have a different degree of strength concerning the extras. Some have a literal vault archival footage, which can be nice, but also can be dull.

The first of two commentaries is with actors Pierce Bronsnan and Rosamund Pike who recorded two separate tracks. Brosnan picks his spots and can’t help but yuck it up laughing by himself. Pike comes in for the first time when the setting changes to London. She helps fill in some of the dead spots when it was just Brosnan. It’s cute to hear her humbled sitting across from Madame Judi Dench. From this point their combined commentary is split, Pike’s dialogue comes out of the right channel, Brosnan’s on the left and both parties aren’t afraid to say where the film could have been improved. In the second commentary director, Lee Tamahori and producer, Michael G. Wilson have a more natural conversation and play off of each other’s comments, though they seem convinced this was a great flick. One final way to squeeze another viewing is the MI6 Datastream which is a fact-laden track where notes pops up throughout the film. In some instances the picture shrinks down and a mini-featurette explains the scene further. There is no toggling between this track and other audio selections or subtitles once this extra is selected. I missed contributions from John Cork of the Ian Fleming Foundation who moderated commentaries for the older films. The fact he’s not on the disc at all is saying something.

The other extra of major significance is From Script to Screen (51:40) which is a large overview of the production for example, writing the script, doing damage control on rumors, set design, stunt coordination, bringing on champion surfer Laird Hamilton to casting the Bond girls. Narrated by Robert Carlyle, one interesting theme in this extra is this concern by the crew to not make a bad Bond film, including producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. No one wanted to ruin the franchise, but ironically, the changes in tone and execution in the second Casino Royale proves that Die Another Day will not be one long-remembered. The featurette is very revealing though as problem after problem arose in making the film, perhaps this should have been a sign to the filmmakers.

Shooting action scenes and establishing scenery in a winter wonderland presented lots of challenges. Shaken and Stirred on Ice (23:35) takes you behind the different range of issues in trying to film a car chase in Reykjavik, Iceland like finding ice thick enough and filming quick enough before the ice weakens and becomes a safety hazard. Just Another Day (22:39) films one day of seven months of principle photography. This day happens to day 69, earmarked for the parachute scene in front of Buckingham Palace. It’s not a particularly thrilling featurette because most of it is spent watching stunt coordinators talking in walkie talkies and Lee Tamahori speaking through his megaphone. The remaining minutes show the crew racing before noon to finish the dialogue scenes before the changing of the guard. British Airways makes its way into the film and briefly in the extras in The British Touch: Bond Arrives in London (3:32). Production Designer Peter Lamont revisits all the of the exotic shoots in the film and the hotels from those spots in On Location (13:51) From the brief revisit to the Ice Hotel Sweden to an extended look back at Havana Cuba to have been able to see each of these locales in high definition is a bit of a letdown. I know now my eye’s become spoiled by blu-ray.

007 Mission Control is also carried over from the recent Bond DVDs accessing the various themes of James Bond directly. The title sequences, the villains, the babes, exotic locations, Q’s debriefing on the latest gadgets. It’s a useless, special really. Absent are the trailers and TV spots that are available in the earlier films and so is the Madonna video. I’m not sure if that there wasn’t enough room to fit it or it was just MGM giving us mercy. Thrown in for good measure are the extensive promotional and behind the camera gallery.

SOMETHING DIED ALRIGHT – OVERALL SHOCK VALUE: C–

The Bond franchise almost died, but thankfully it was Pierce Brosnan’s run as 007. Rosamund Pike was a nice choice as a Bond girl but I couldn’t stand Halle Berry, no matter how well she fills out an orange bikini. The late 90′s were a lost era for action films; the box office success of Mission Impossible explains a lot. All the trademark Bond swagger and purpose regressed into an over-stylized video game where there’s action just to have action. I think this is another film (given its time period) filled with CG effects without cause. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. Recommended as a rental at the very best, or for those Bond completists who have to have everything with 007 attached to it.