The opening scene of a movie sets you up for what's to come – it's got to be surprising, or intriguing, it's got to give you characters you instantly know you're going to love, or indeed hate.

Done right, they can be electric.

Bit of a shame then when the movie goes downhill from there. Here are 7 truly magnificent openers to movies that were just… okay.

1. Watchmen

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Zack Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal graphic novel isn't terrible. It just isn't actually good. Slavish to the original without seeming to understand or translate the nuance, context and humour, the movie is never better than in the opening sequence (not actually in the book).

It's a witty, visually inventive and super-stylised history lesson set to Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' which shows in tiny, telling vignettes the rise and fall of costumed heroes in a subverted account of the 20th century.

It all goes a bit flat after that.

2. Suicide Squad

Setting aside the fact that we'd seen half of this in the trailers already, the opening sequence to this very silly Suicide Squad is filled with promise as we meet the residents of Belle Reve – Will Smith's Deadshot, who threatens the guard and gets the crap beaten out of him for his trouble, and Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn, "a whole lot of pretty in a whole lot of crazy" who gets electrocuted then deliberately knocks herself out.

It promised us something subversive, violent, edgy and different. Instead we got something idiotic, sexist, and pedestrian. Boo.

3. 28 Weeks Later

The sequel to Danny Boyle's genre-shifting zombie chiller starts six months after the Rage virus has ravaged the country.

A bunch of survivors are boarded up in a remote farmhouse trying to avoid infection. Teasing you that these will be our protagonists, it's a massive shocker when the red-eyed infected suddenly break in, the virus spreading through the household super-fast.

Frantic, panicky camerawork follows Robert Carlyle's character as he desperately tries to escape with his wife and the small boy who led the infected to them. His wife won't leave the kids so he jumps out the window, leaving them to die as he flees across country and down to the river, where things only get worse.

Brilliantly shot, it's an absolutely ferocious opening that the rest of the film (while still pretty decent) never quite matches.

4. Spectre

Before Spectre, Mexico City didn't actually have a Day of the Dead parade. But so utterly awesome was this opening sequence from the most recent Bond movie that the city was inspired to re-create it.

A beautiful tracking shot takes us through the crowds, where puppets and performers mix with skeletons in formalwear.

One of them is Bond, riding the elevator with a beautiful woman to her hotel room – Bond, you old dog! But it's not sexytime just yet. It's all a cover to get a prime spot to foil a terrorist plot.

Shot like it's all one continuous take (it's not), it's an awesome opening and a masterful piece of film-making.

Unlike the movie as a whole – which was a ludicrous, boring, retrogressive mess with a truly terrible baddie in Christophe Waltz's Blofeld.

5. Swordfish

"You know the problem with Hollywood? They make shit. Unbelievable, unremarkable shit."

A rather ironic opening line spoken by John Travolta in this 2001 action guilty pleasure. While it might not be a *totally* dreadful movie, it's fair to say that it never quite lived up to its opening pre-credits sequence.

It starts off with Travolta's crime lord Gabriel calmly discussing filmmaking over a cigar in a Tarantino-esque monologue, all while SWAT are waiting outside.

After a tense standoff between cops and Travolta's crew – who have hooked up hostages with bombs – one of his crew is shot, leading to an almighty impressive explosion in a Matrix-style bullet-time sequence.

But that's where the fun stops.

6. Ghost Ship

The opening to this fairly insipid B-movie is a work of horror genius – shame the rest of the film doesn't follow suit.

A cruise liner sails the seas while guests dance on deck under the stars to a beautiful lounge singer. The ship's captain offers a dance to little Emily Browning, who is sitting alone. Everything is nice.

Until a stray bit of wire unravels from a spool and CUTS IN HALF everyone on the dance floor. Deliciously, hilariously grim, as the entire deck (bar the little girl who was short enough to escape) falls apart. The movie is never this fun again.

7. American Sniper

Massive in America, not so massive in the UK, the movie was somewhat well received but criticised for its political stance on the Iraq war and the Iraqi people.

This opening scene, nevertheless, where we watch through the sites of Bradley Cooper's gun as he choses whether to shoot a woman and a young boy who looks like they're carrying a grenade, is enormously powerful, very much forcing you to think "What would I do?"

From: Digital Spy