The Single Greatest Thing In Each James Bond Movie
6. Die Another Day - The Opening 25 Minutes
The most hated Bond film of all time is great... for 25 minutes.
The film kicks off with a sublime action sequence in North Korea that, like most of the best Bond set-pieces, represents a delicious combo of wacky pyrotechnics and palpable tension. Better still, Bond doesn't get away at the end.
He's captured and, as depicted through the opening titles, tortured for 14 months. Subsequently, he's released back to MI6, branded as a traitor (for leaking information he never actually leaked) and has his double-O status rescinded.
We really see Bond at his lowest and most damaged here, and it's really thought-provoking to see the normally unstoppable badass defeated to this degree.
Sadly, even though the foundations for a great Bond film were firmly established here, the movie falls to pieces around 25 minutes in after Bond escapes from MI6 custody by... somehow faking a cardiac arrest by slowing his heart rate down. Right.
The rest of the film is, by and large, a turkey, but at least it was great for just 25 minutes. That's better than nothing.