IT’S A SAD FACT of life that longevity confers respectability. If you hang around long enough, eventually, you become revered, no matter how second-rate your work is. Take, for example, Helen Thomas. If the dim, crotchety White House correspondent was in her fifth year on the job, she’d be a laughingstock. As it is, she’s an “institution.” This principle holds for things as well as people. The history of architecture is filled with structures which are thought, initially, to be ridiculous, but are eventually adored (the Eiffel Tower, the Vietnam Wall, the former World Trade Center).

The same can be said for movies. If a movie lives long enough–which is to say, spawns enough sequels–it becomes immune from criticism. So it is with James Bond. It means nothing to say that “Die Another Day,” the 20th Bond movie, is abysmal. It’s useless to review “Die Another Day” as we would “The Thin Red Line” or “The Manchurian Candidate”–or even “Speed.” The Bond movies are such institutions that they can only be regarded in respect to one another. All we can do with “Die Another Day” is sift through the Bond canon and try to find its proper place.