A View to a Kill

Roger Moore's send-off as the longest-tenured James Bond is a bit of an underwhelming one, and probably should have come sooner. The movie certainly isn't terrible, and is better in a lot of ways than its predecessor. I've lost track of how many times Moore's Bond has gone skiing (it's like three or four), something which every Bond seems to do except Connery, strangely; but he does so in the opening sequence, killing his only victims until the very end, and of all five, he actually directly personally offs zero of them. It's a bit unusual how sometimes he'll destroy a small army by himself, and others he'll barely harm a fly. I wonder if it's a conscious decision on the part of the filmmakers to mix it up from film to film, because while movies often follow similar story structures to previous entries in the series, if he was always involved in the same amount of violence people might wonder what the point is.

This is also a high water mark for number of different girls slept with, pretty impressive for a 58 year old. The problem is that it's hard to believe he could pull it off, he doesn't so much romance them as just let them fall into his bed. Even Moore himself he either didn't have chemistry with or downright didn't like the two main women. And it took me this long but I finally got fed up with his constant boring witticisms. When he's infiltrating the villain's base with the girl, he points to a hiding spot on a vehicle and says "Why walk when you can ride." Does every god damn thing out of your mouth have to be a quip, dude? It's okay to talk like a normal person once in a while. I liked Christopher Walken as the antagonist, he's one of the more psychotic ones in the series and actually has something approaching an interesting background. He's pretty much the highlight of the movie, although his penchant for theatrical executions over definite ones is his downfall as usual. Not a bad movie, but again, not a great one.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran
Foreign locations: Siberia, France, California
Bond, James Bond: 32:05 (fake name), 1:12:10 (other fake name), 1:33:55, 1:34:30
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 4
Chases: 3
Kills: 5
Non-lethal takedowns: 5

Octopussy

Here's another Moore Bond film I didn't really appreciate, mostly because it seemed more concerned with making the audience chuckle than exciting them. It's sort of like Moonraker, but instead of an utterly absurd final act it's just pervasively silly almost the entire time. It's just hard for me to be interested when action sequences are played for laughs instead of any sense of tension or suspense. There's a part on a speeding train late in the movie which is decent, but otherwise it's a pretty goofy film. An early scene in India is less a chase than a personal challenge by the filmmakers to see how many clichés they could stuff into a single scene. Sword swallowers! Walking on hot coals! Juggling torches! I mean, at one point Bond is trying to escape some pursuers in a jungle and swings away from them on some vines, and the iconic Tarzan shout plays. Just for no reason. This movie is fucking stupid.

It does have some decent elements, though. The plot involving Fabergé eggs, nuclear weapons, East/West Berlin, and the tenuous truce between the USSR and the western world is one of the less terrible ones in Moore's tenure. Maud Adams, in a rare return for a Bond girl actress and I believe the only one to do so as a different character, has been treated relatively kindly by time in the nine years since The Man with the Golden Gun, and is still pretty good at it. And I mean, Jaws isn't in it. The main henchman is a big, mostly quiet Indian fellow, and pretty forgettable... but he isn't Jaws. The final action scenes are a mixed bag, the stuff with the circus people in the chateau is silly as usual, but the airplane sequence is fairly tense and an okay climax. It's a shame the movie is so silly, because otherwise it's really not bad.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "All Time High" by Rita Coolidge
Foreign locations: Latin America, India, Germany
Bond, James Bond: 31:20
Martini shaken, not stirred: 1:08:40 (Unspoken)
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 13 humans, 1 spider, plus explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 10

For Your Eyes Only

Among Moore's Bond movies, this is one of the more enjoyable to me, a little behind The Spy Who Loved Me. The girls are a little sketchy, with one seeming a little old and the other not quite the natural beauty you usually see in the role, but I ended up liking her when she turned out to be one of his more competent allies. This is also the only film in the series without the M character after Bernard Lee died, and the first time I noticed Moore looking a little too old for the part. He's older than Sean Connery, so casting him 11 years later in the same role was something of an odd decision. Bond shouldn't be a young buck, but he shouldn't look like he's visibly in his 50s at times either. Still though, the events was reasonable, there's actually something to the plot besides an elaborate scheme to take over/destroy the world, and the action wasn't bad.

Oh! Blofeld finally dies in this one. It's just the opening sequence and he's not identified by name or face but it's totally him and he doesn't actually die on screen but he probably did since he never reappeared in this continuity. Pretty ignominious end, but it was much a statement by the filmmakers as anything, as they were showing the guy who won the rights to the character after a legal battle that they didn't need his ass. Anyway, Bond does some skiing and SCUBA diving and mountain climbing, including some pretty tense scenes throughout before the final assault on the villain's hideout in a mountaintop monastery. It's one of the best end sequences yet, not because of big action or explosions but because it's an interesting setup in an interesting location. The movie is not without its flaws, but at the least it seemed like they were trying.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton
Foreign locations: Greece, Italy
Bond, James Bond: 28:25, 36:40
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 2
Chases: 2
Kills: 11
Non-lethal takedowns: 10

Moonraker

This marks the midpoint of this little project, so a brief status report: Um, it's going all right. The general level of quality is about what I expected. This right here is definitely one of the worst films of the lot, and a disappointing one for the longest tenured M to go out on. It starts out strongly enough as Bond goes to meet Drax, an insanely rich gentleman with his own space program, and there's some mild intrigue and subterfuge as he investigates the disappearance of one of his shuttles. His mission leads him to Venice, where he engages in a wacky chase involving a transforming gondola/hovercraft and a lot of reaction shots, and then to Rio de Janeiro, where one of the single worst sequences in the series occurs. There's a tension-free encounter on a cable car where the irritating Jaws returns to terrorize him in a dimwitted fashion as hilariously bad editing and fake stunt work prevent it from ever being exciting. After Bond escapes a petite but mysteriously strong woman helps Jaws escape from wreckage, and the two fall in love instantly while Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" plays in the background. It's hilarious to me when I read that filmmakers were skeptical such a romance would work with Jaws being so much taller, when the real reason it wouldn't is that she was pretty attractive while he was a hideous freak of nature.

The main thing you'll notice if you watch these movies in order is that this is basically the same damn movie as The Spy Who Loved Me. Bond parachutes in the opening scene, is pursued by Jaws, is chased while driving an amphibious vehicle, defeats the villain on their own turf, and is unintentionally seen by his superiors re-consummating his relationship with the main girl right before the credits. The antagonist her has the exact same scheme as the last one, to destroy civilization and then create his own, only this time using weaponized nerve gas from Brazilian flowers and a space station instead of nuclear missiles and an underwater vessel. Things get truly ridiculous once they reach the station, especially after the cavalry alive (alarmingly quickly considering they're in orbit) and engage the bad guys in a LASER SPACE BATTLE. Seriously, there's outlandish spy action and then there's bad science fiction. Pretty dumb movie overall.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Moonraker" by Shirley Bassey
Foreign locations: California, Venice, Brazil, outer space
Bond, James Bond: 18:00
Martini shaken, not stirred: 57:35
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 11 humans, 1 snake
Non-lethal takedowns: 6

The Spy Who Loved Me

Of the five Moore Bond films I've seen now, I probably liked this one the most. I've definitely noticed that with these earlier films I prefer down to earth plots, and for some reason, Russian Bond girls. There are basically four types of Bond girls, two primary and two secondary. The secondary ones will either help Bond and get killed for their efforts, or turn out to be or remain on the side of the villain (and usually get killed too). Primary ones are either silly and just there to be pretty, or capable equals to Bond himself and perhaps slightly less attractive. The latter are my favorite kind, and agent XXX here is definitely one of those. It's another movie where Bond ends up cooperating with the USSR, which is also a common thread for some enjoyable entries in the series, and is sort of one long chase as he tries to track down the man responsible for stealing some nuclear submarines.

I'd like to talk about Jaws for a second. He's probably the most recognizable Bond henchman. He also sucks. He's seriously irritating. Sure, he's initially imposing, but all he does is chase Bond ineffectually for two movies (more on that later) and look stupid. It's amazing to me that anyone likes him. He's fine at first, but the way he just keeps coming and refuses to die is tiring rather than intimidating or anything. I liked to movie in spite of him, not in any way because of him. Anyway, there are some pretty good sequences like Bond and XXX matching wits in Egypt and a prolonged car chase that turns a bit silly when it turns into a submersible. The climactic large scale battles near the end of these earlier films are rarely interesting to me, though this turned out to be a pretty good one, and I like the deadly finality of his confrontation with the villain. I really wasn't sure about Moore when I started this thing, but I think he's a pretty good Bond stuck in a pretty dull era for the series.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon
Foreign locations: Austria, Egypt, Sardinia
Bond, James Bond: 35:10, 1:06:50 (fake name)
Martini shaken, not stirred: 33:55
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 14, plus explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 10

The Man with the Golden Gun

I'm not sure how I felt about this one. It was a little unusual in some ways, I mean, just look at the kill count. Christopher Lee plays Scaramanga, a villain that I enjoyed for the most part but seemed to lack some of the ambition of his peers. Nick Nack is one of the series' more memorable henchmen, but more because of his novelty than being an interesting character. The movie is just sort of subdued, except when it isn't. Bond returns to Asia, but instead of doing it with a lot of their ladies he mostly gets attacked by martial arts schools. A welcome car chase is marred by the reappearance of the bumbling Southern cop from the last movie, a stunt sequence I'd be sure was a reference to The Dukes of Hazzard if the movie didn't come out five years before the show started, and a ridiculous transformation of a car into a car-plane.

I definitely thought I liked it more than the first Moore film when I was watching it, I'm just now struggling with reasons why. I guess it's just different from recent movies, a nice breath of fresh air to meet someone who just wants to make money and chill on his private island instead of blow up the planet or destroy society for some insane reason. Also, being honorable enough to want to duel with 007 is a much better reason to open yourself up to death than deciding to slowly lower your opponent to his doom without paying much attention to him instead of just shooting him in the fucking face. Maud Adams is a rare case of playing more than one Bond girl, as she reappears later in the series, but here plays Scaramanga's angry mistress and has some good, memorable scenes. The more traditional Bond girl is the garden variety Ditzybot 1.0, but she looks nice in a bikini so she gets a pass. Also, you know Moore's a pretty good Bond when he can pull of a love scene that's interrupted by an angry dwarf without it killing the momentum.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "The Man with the Golden Gun" by Lulu
Foreign locations: Beirut, China, Thailand
Bond, James Bond: 16:15, 22:15 (fake name), 46:45 (third person)
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 2
Chases: 2
Kills: 1
Non-lethal takedowns: 6

Live and Let Die

And here we have the blaxploitation entry in the series. The villain is still fancy and has a secret base, but world-changing plots and nuclear weapons are replaced with heroin trafficking and voodoo rituals. Oh, it's also the first one starring Roger Moore, which is fairly significant. I've seen three of his movies now, and I think he's a pretty good Bond stuck in an era of not very good movies. Live and Let Die is actually pretty good for a while. Paul McCartney's theme song is really entertaining, and it informs the score for the entire movie. Bond's interactions with the predominantly black antagonists are an interesting and somewhat humorous look at the time. Baron Samedi and Tee Hee Johnson are quintessential weird villains for the era. Jane Seymour is a good Bond girl, years before she became the crazy cougar in things like Wedding Crashers.

Once the film gets to New Orleans though, I sort of lost interest. As I've mentioned, the filmmakers back then were very good at finding ways to make action scenes boring. There's a massive boat chase across a bayou that's just interminable. It's over twelve minutes long but filled with very little action other than skipping boats over short strips of dry land and a lot of comic relief by a bumbling southern cop that's not even close to funny. After the villain takes off his insanely bad makeup and reveals himself, he shows up chilling underground with some sharks while his inept henchmen dance to tribal music upstairs. His eventual death is hilariously cheesy looking, and it also marks the first time Bond actually directly killed the main villain in the story. Live and Let Die has some competent moments, and also the series' first real curse as an old lady says "shit", but I didn't like it that much.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Live and Let Die" by Wings
Foreign locations: New York, Caribbean, New Orleans
Bond, James Bond: 24:05
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 3
Kills: 6 humans, 1 snake
Non-lethal takedowns: 7

Diamonds Are Forever

Sean Connery's swansong for the role, at least in an official capacity, completes a sort of trilogy featuring Blofeld as the main antagonist. This time he's played by another different actor, and one who played a different character that was killed by one of Blofeld's henchmen two movies ago, plus there's a bunch of plastic surgery-created clones of him running around, so it's all a bit confusing. The story is about blood diamonds, and of course the villain's plot is more diabolical than simply controlling the market. Probably needless to say, a satellite is involved. Blofeld's main agents throughout the story are a pair of hitmen who go around killing whoever comes in contact with the diamonds and taking them for themselves. Except for James Bond, of course, whom they merely leave to die in fairly easy-to-escape situations despite him being easily the most competent of any of their marks. One of them's just creepy too, not in a good way, just in a can't-act-what-is-this-man-doing-in-films kind of way.

The movie starts off okay, but once they get to Vegas, the story just kind of slows down. Bond does some spying and driving and impersonating and flirting, but for some reason I just wasn't totally into it. Bond only really has one girl as Jill St. John is running around most of the time, which was generally fine by me. There's a chase in a moon buggy and a pair of deadly female henchpeople called Bambi and Thumper. Really a visible increase in silliness in this film besides the absurdity of the evil plot - an elephant wins at a slot machine and dances happily, Bond is able to drive a car through a tight alley by balancing it on two wheels and thanks to a continuity error comes out the other side flipped in the other direction, and John is so unprepared for the recoil of an automatic weapon that it blows her back fifteen feet and off the edge of an oil rig. I also enjoyed how there's a guy there at the rig sitting by a microphone and counting things down, instead of it being automated. As we're entering the 70s, I can see it becoming a series that I can find enjoyment in, but not truly appreciate as films like the earlier Connery ones or the Craig ones.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Diamonds Are Forever" by Shirley Bassey
Foreign locations: Amsterdam, California, Las Vegas
Bond, James Bond: 1:30
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 1
Chases: 2
Kills: 7
Non-lethal takedowns: 7

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

George Lazenby's first and only turn in the James Bond role is something of a black sheep in the series, and not just because of his presence. The movie is just weird in so many ways. It's the only one with an instrumental main theme since they started doing sung ones (It's actually a pretty good theme though). The James Bond theme is played with a weird electronic twinge. They actually overdub Lazenby's voice with someone else when he's in disguise. Peter Hunt had worked on the series previously as an editor, but he was the first person to only direct a single Bond film until 1997. You can see the only breasts I'm aware of in the series' history, when you can catch a glimpse of the Playboy centerfold Bond is looking at. He actually makes a fiction breaking joke about Sean Connery. And spoiler alert for a thirty year old movie here, but Bond gets freaking married. And not a fake marriage for the mission which he is known to do, a real one. Just a weird movie all around.

On the other hand, it's really not a bad one besides these oddities, I might have enjoyed it more than the last three Connery made. Well, maybe. There's some decent espionage stuff as he makes his way towards infiltrating Blofeld's (I'd also credit a returning villain as unique if they didn't do it again in the next movie) secret clinic in the Swiss Alps (pretty tame after a volcano lair), and some decent chases and shootouts after he gets there. Telly Savalas, recognizable by me as the crazy member of The Dirty Dozen, takes over the Blofeld role, and while his plot this time is less grand it also makes more sense, so I'll give him some credit there. I have a question though - if him getting his face constantly redone with surgery to maintain cover is the excuse for them changing actors for the part, why did the first guy to play him on screen have that big eye scar? Something so striking wouldn't help anonymity. Was that really his original face? Probably not, since his voice changes each time his face does and he easily had a higher voice than the guy who played him when they weren't showing his face. It's also odd how he acts like he doesn't recognize Bond when they meet in this movie, staying close to the source material which was written before the source of the previous film. Meh. Bond does some skiing and shooting and there's a tragic ending that leads directly to the next film. Lazenby really wasn't bad, and turning down the huge offer to stay was the biggest mistake he ever made.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"
Foreign locations: Portugal, Switzerland
Bond, James Bond: 4:35
Martini shaken, not stirred: 22:15
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 4
Kills: 5
Non-lethal takedowns: 7

You Only Live Twice

James Bond's descent into silliness was a slow and gradual one. You can see it coming here in the script penned by Roald Dahl which only slightly resembles the original novel, although it's less of a goofy tone here as just fairly outlandish situations. This movie is probably actually the key for Dr. Evil. We finally see Blofeld's face in this one, and he's got the baldness, eye scar, fluffy white cat, and less than threatening voice. Also, he has a secret volcano lair. Which Bond ends up attacking with an army of ninjas led by the chief of the Japanese Secret Service. And to help infiltrate operations beforehand, he gets disguised as a Japanese man by wearing prosthetics on his eyes that don't actually seem to do much and a black wig. And Blofeld uses the volcano lair to launch spaceships that capture other ones in an attempt to trigger World War III on Earth - you know, the planet he lives on. I can't remember if he explained why he wanted to do that.

It's kind of a shame the second half is so ludicrous because I actually really liked the first. There's a good theme song, classic catchphrases are subverted, Bond does some legitimate espionage work. A girl he sleeps with who works for SPECTRE gets dropped in a pool of piranhas after she leaves Bond in an airplane she bails out of. When Bond is being chased at a harbor he makes it to the roof and there's a really cool overhead shot as he is pursued by a bunch of guys and he coldcocks several of them. And the plot really is genuinely intriguing until you figure out what's really going on. The change in setting and characters to predominantly Asian is an interesting one, although apparently responsible for Sean Connery's temporary abdication of the role after he was constantly bothered by the Japanese press during filming. Twice is a flawed movie, though I admit to liking it more than the last one.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "You Only Live Twice" by Nancy Sinatra
Foreign locations: Hong Kong, Japan
Bond, James Bond: Not uttered
Martini shaken, not stirred: 21:55 (backwards)
Ladies seduced: 4
Chases: 2
Kills: 15
Non-lethal takedowns: 16

Thunderball

After the Bond movies continually seemed to get better through the first three, the fourth felt like an honest misstep. You get the feeling that the technology they used to film underwater must have been new and impressive at the time, because they spend an absolutely unreasonable amount of time there. The movie is fun as always when Bond stays above the surface, but the insistence on having so many major plot turns take place with everyone wearing breathing equipment and floating around turns into a real drag. It culminates in the big fight scene where dudes writhe around trying to choke and stab and shoot each other with harpoons, and I couldn't even tell which one was James after a while. It's hard to make a major action sequence actually boring, but they managed to pull it off.

On the good side of things though, it did continue to inspire future movies and spoofs with things like an eye-patched, high ranking henchman to the still mostly-off screen principal villain and a board room where inadequate employees can be conveniently executed from their seats. Bond's sneaky and the Bond girls are as nice as ever, and they even subvert the formula a bit this early on when one of the villainous ones asks incredulously if he expected her to change sides after he slept with her, something that worked quite well in both previous films. Number 2 is a solid primary antagonist, and shockingly the fourth in a row that Bond doesn't actually kill directly. The action scene where they duke it out on the bridge of a runaway boat is unfortunately quite dated at this point, as the sped up footage of the ocean superimposed on the background is laughably absurd looking. You can sort of see in this movie of the roots taking hold that would transform the series from interesting spy films to high budget, silly action fests. They're still enjoyable, but for me definitely less so.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Thunderball" by Tom Jones
Foreign locations: Paris, Bahamas
Bond, James Bond: Not uttered
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 14, more underwater. I lost track of who Bond was.
Non-lethal takedowns: 11

Goldfinger

Of all these early Bond films I've seen (I'm up through the sixth), this is my favorite. It's also the only one that has nothing to do with SPECTRE. It's not that I don't like SPECTRE, I just enjoyed Goldfinger's story and characters the most. It gets rolling early with the classic scene of the woman covered in gold paint, something that wouldn't actually kill you, but an iconic moment nonetheless. Goldfinger himself is a classic Bond villain, with a particularly clever evil plan and penchant for theatrics. I mean, this is the guy who strapped Bond to a table with a laser and told him he expected him to die. Oddjob is the quintessential henchman; silent, nearly indestructible, and extremely deadly. And Pussy Galore is a great Bond girl; the first one who actually spoke with her own voice and was a legitimate actor, and actually put up a fight instead of just falling into his arms.

This is the first Bond movie to take place in the United States at least part of the time, and it's funny to hear the voices of the actors picked to play the gangsters Goldfinger works with, they're as stereotypically American as possible. The most important location in the film is actually Kentucky, which is fairly tame by Bond's standards, but there's a good reason, his target is Fort Knox, and the assault on said building is the series' biggest and most elaborate sequence yet. Bond actually spends a great deal of his time in Kentucky being captured and trying haplessly to get a message to the outside world, and it's interesting to see the first time he really seemed vulnerable. Of course his manhood's just as deadly as his brawling skills or Walther PPK and ends up being what saves the day in a convoluted sort of way. As a break from the early films' all-SPECTRE-all-the-time approach, I liked it a lot.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey
Foreign locations: Cuba, Miami, Switzerland, Kentucky
Bond, James Bond: 12:00, 38:20 (interrupted)
Martini shaken, not stirred: 55:30
Ladies seduced: 4
Chases: 3
Kills: 7
Non-lethal takedowns: 5

From Russia with Love

It's interesting to see how these early Bond films influenced the later series and pop culture in general. This might have made more sense to mention in the last review, but the first time he says "Bond, James Bond," it's in reply to someone else asking his name after she revealed hers using the same pattern. I was quick to find out that his catchphrases weren't nearly as consistently used in the early films as more recent ones. This movie had multiple firsts - the first opening scene between the gun barrel intro and the animated credits sequence, the first theme song sung by a popular artist, although it doesn't make an appearance until the end of the film. Dr. No mentioned SPECTRE, the secretive evil organization that became the basis for all secretive evil organizations in the future, but this was the first movie where we saw a man petting a cat and executing his numbered henchmen when they failed him.

I enjoyed this movie overall more than the first. The storyline is more overtly political as the bad guys start a conflict between the Brits and the USSR, and more adventurous as Bond gets around a bit more. He's actually fairly docile in this one, rarely getting violent outside one scene, and, unless I misread his intentions in a scene with a couple gypsy girls, not too frisky either. Part of that might be how quickly they introduce the Bond girl, because usually it's a while before she's on his side or even introduced in these early movies. I honestly liked the subdued nature of the movie, because while there's something fun to the ridiculousness of higher budgeted spy capers, this just seems closer to the spirit of what a debonair operative like Bond might actually do. It's not without excitement, as a single brawl on a train car can be just as thrilling as a massive action sequence if done properly. They actually based a video game on this film a few years ago, which I now find perplexing because it's one of the least video game-y Bond movies I've seen, and I liked it for that.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "From Russia with Love" by Matt Monro
Foreign locations: Istanbul, Yugoslavia, Venice
Bond, James Bond: Not uttered
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 1 new, 1 repeat
Chases: 2
Kills: 8, plus possible explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 3

Dr. No

So I'm gonna watch all the James Bond movies. The reason for this is pretty simple - I've usually only seen the earlier films as part of marathons on TV where everything runs together, and so my mind is full of incomplete and fuzzy ideas of what the series is. Really, the only Bond actors whose films I can actually distinguish from each other are Pierce Brosnan and and Daniel Craig. Anyway, here we start at the beginning with Sean Connery's first turn as the famous character. Dr. No does a pretty solid job of establishing the franchise as we see a lot of the key elements in place. There's no opening scene before the credits, and said credits don't feature girls dancing around or a famous singer crooning a theme with the title in the lyrics. But Bond says some clever things, romances a few girls, faces off against a slightly over the top villain, spouts a couple catchphrases for the first time, and a few things blow up.

Really though, the movie is fairly tame. Not too violent, not too long, only one major exotic location. There's not even a scene where Q gives Bond a wacky high-tech gadget, just one where he's lectured on his choice of firearm. From what I can tell this was intentional, to start a movie series on a grounded, reasonable footing before letting things get bigger and more explosive. Dr. No himself is a pretty good villain though, complete with metallic hands and a menacing dinner conversation. He's one of the only early antagonists or main Bond girls to actually use his own voice, and it's fun to watch him interact with Bond for the first time, really setting a tone for what was to come. Ursula Andress is pretty damn hot in her bikini, but although she went on to some other movies doesn't do her own voice and just sort of stands around looking pretty in the second half of the film, more femme than fatale. In the end, it's a solid movie, not great, but better than a few other Bond flicks I've seen.

James Bond stats
Theme song: James Bond theme
Foreign location: Jamaica
Bond, James Bond: 8:00
Martini shaken, not stirred: 24:40, 1:28:10
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 3 humans, 1 tarantula
Non-lethal takedowns: 9