Die Another Day (2002)

 "What are you? CIA?

"NSA..."

I was spoilt for choice for quotes. This may not be the best Bond film ever, but it's one of the very best for double entendres.

Yes, I know, it's reputation isn't great. And yes, it's flawed. I sisliked it back in 2002. And yet, on today's second viewing... is it really that bad?

Yes, we have the invisible car and really quite out there sci-fi elements. But I wasn't as bothered about that this time for some reason. And yes, the plot doesn't quite make sense. And it's a bit harsh for Bond to be in the doghouse for supposedly cracking under torture!!!

But I was entertained. Even the universally panned theme song... well, the production is truly horrible, and it's a waste of Madonna to use her in a song like this, but if you look past the horrible autotune and production issues, the song itself is fundamentally good.

Yet we have a good villain, however preposterous his backstory. Halle Berry is... well, adequate as a Bond girl, and gets a nice little scene involving a laser beam that's a nice little homage to Goldfinger. There are some nice locations in Cuba, although by the time we get to Iceland there's far too much CGI. That becomes a problem during the car chase action sequences, too.

And it's all very, very early 2000s, all waterboarding torture and conflict diamonds and smoking at work.

But fundamentally, this film is far from terrible. Perhaps the bad reception was because of everyone now having seen Austin Powers, meaning the format needed to become more serious to survive, and this film is gloriously silly?

Severance (2006)

"Foursome?"

My, this is brilliant. A superb script from James Moran and excellent direction from Christopher Smith of Creep fame give us a hugely entertaining comedy slasher- which is, of course, always the best kind of slasher.

Danny Dyer is, well, Danny Dyer. But it's a shock for this fairly regular EastEnders viewer to see him looking so bloody young. The film is really carried, though, by character actor stalwarts such as Andy Nyman and the superb Tim McInnerny.

The film oozes confidence and fun, beginning in media res with some unfortunate Hungarian employees of the same weapons company  employing our mainly British cast getting a foretaste of what we will soon be seeing. We also get enough time to get to know our engaging and well-scripted characters before the carnage begins, and I mean it entirely in a good way when I note that this film dates from a time when The Office was firmly part of the zeitgeist. Noughties office humour and the slasher genre mix very well indeed. This is a bloody good film and more people should see it.

The best bit, of course, involves a decapitation and the few seconds thereafter...