Ranking Every James Bond Opening Scene From Worst To Best
21. Octopussy
Octopussy's cold open accomplishes the tough feat of being simultaneously bland and ludicrous.
In order to plant a bomb in a presumably evil military facility in an unspecified country, Bond goes undercover as a Latino Colonel. His disguise - which consists of only a uniform and a mustache - is just as absurd as Connery's Asian disguise in You Only Live Twice and almost as offensive.
Surprisingly, the henchman at the facility aren't fooled by Bond's clever disguise, and they capture him. But don't worry, 007 always comes prepared; using nothing but his intellect (and an attractive woman as a distraction), Bond escapes, and then proceed to destroy the facility with a plane that he brought with him.
But wait, if he had a plane with him the whole time why even bother with the disguise? Couldn't he have just used the plane from the start? And what is he even destroying anyway? Who are these villains? All of these questions immediately come to mind when watching this scene, but Octopussy's only answer is an indifferent shrug.
It's not uncommon for a James Bond movie to have plot holes, but audiences typically ignore or forgive them because they are so caught up in the excitement. Octopussy's opening isn't exciting, its dull, and its lack of excitement makes its plot incoherences unforgivable.