Dr. No
Sometimes a reviewer has to ask themselves, is something that was fresh and new and exciting in 1962 still retain the same quality today, when so many elements have since lent themselves to the level of cliché and parody? That issue comes into play with this, the first ever James Bond movie, and no doubt, Sean Connery was perfect in the role from his first second onscreen, introducing himself to a female sophisticate during a game of baccarat as the iconic theme kicks into gear, awe-inspiring if nothing else as the beginning of a legacy that exists to this day. Connery is everything Bond should be: sleek, dangerous, charming with the ladies to a fault (especially when being seduced by a beautiful girl whom he KNOWS is an enemy operative, he nails her anyway and then turns her over to the cops haha), ruthless when dealing with his enemies, he certainly is the type of guy that you want to see more of. The problems lie with the plot itself and a number of supporting actors: Jack Lord (and his ridiculous hair) barely makes an impression as second-string CIA agent Felix Leiter; while John Kitzmiller’s Quarrel is the living definition of a useless sidekick, even while the portrayal of his character can be seen as borderline racist in the old-fashioned early 1960s; Anthony Dawson’s duplicitous Professor seems a bit too feeble to match up with Bond, especially with his master plan of trying to kill 007 by placing a spider(!) in his bed; and Joseph Wiseman’s Dr. No himself, after a LONG buildup, is ultimately a disappointment, coming across more of a mentor to Dr. Evil than in being any kind of fearsome supervillain. Indeed, the wealth of material for Austin Powers and other spoofs / ripoffs is a gold mine here, from having the villain have ample opportunity to kill his nemesis but instead decide to feed him dinner and explain his master plan, to using an unnecessarily slow-paced form of execution without even watching his enemy die, to a ludicrous master plan having something to do with sabotaging U.S. space rockets and causing them to fall into South America or whatnot (possibly to frame Castro’s Cuba), what thrilled viewers almost 50 years ago causes the 2010 viewer to mostly roll their eyes and laugh heartily at how sadly old-school much of this is. On a positive note, we have Ursula Andress as the first (and possibly best) Bond Girl, Honey Ryder, with the body of a Greek Goddess when she emerges from the water in her first scene, to having a sexy / pouty non-acting style when dealing with Bond and others. It’s refreshing that she’s not a highly trained expert in anything but rather a carefree free spirit who has merrily come to Dr. No’s island lair to collect seashells and gets caught up in the excitement. Plus we get Bernard Lee and Lois Maxwell making their first appearances as M and Miss Moneypenny respectively, and their rapport with Connery is in stride right out of the gate. The film does suffer greatly from a lack of quality henchmen, with the aforementioned Professor and a moronic assassin trio known as the Three Blind Mice being the only thing we get here. And the climax, showing Bond shutting down No’s nuclear reactor, made me shake my hand as despite having scores of henchmen fleeing the scene, it is No himself (who is handicapped) who climbs up on the platform to go mano-e-mano with 007, not exactly the sign of someone with a rock solid employer-employee relationship. Overall, while technically an important classic for being the first, a dated and rather quaint artifact of its time…
5/10