Reviewed By

Christopher Armstead
Today is the day, my friends, the day we begin what will undoubtedly be a long… sometimes joyful… sometimes painful journey… that being a revisiting of every James Bond 007 film ever made.  It is possible that I've seen these movies, but with the exception of the recent Daniel Craig Bonds, it has been decades so I don't recall almost any of them, including the more recent Pierce Brosnan ones.  But we are going to fix that starting with the one that started it all… Dr. No.  A movie that is a classic, but because it is so old, it is almost funny as every spy movie that follows has copied this one to some degree, almost making it a parody of itself. 

An MI6 agent, who clearly isn't a skilled as one James Bond, finds himself taken out by three blind men in Jamaica.  Just so you know, these three fake blind men go to extraordinary lengths to sell the world on their blindness.  Now since this cat is missing, we need somebody to find him and also discover why they took him out in the first place and if the Planet Earth needs a tough job handled, then they call upon James Bond, agent 007 (Sean Connery) who will save this Planet Earth.  Right after he finishes his card game.  And has sex with that woman.  Now he's ready.

James makes port in Kingston and notices something is off right off the bat with his driver, who will regret trying to run game on James Bond.  Then it's off to get to the bottom of the what and why of what's going down.

After some more action and shenanigans, James has learned that in a neighboring island called Krab Key, there is this odd Chinese fellow only known as Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) and just the mention of his island or his name strikes fear into all the citizens of the other islands.  The odd things is that
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this Dr. No seems to be one step ahead of the agency on most things, leading James Bond to suspect the sexy secretary Miss Taro (Zena Marshall) which kind of makes sense since she's a fake Asian just like Dr. No.  How does one discover if she is the one leaking sensitive information?  By having sex with of course!  That James… I tell you.  James could've totally avoided that sex thing to get what he needed, but that's crazy talk.

James knows that secret lies within Krab Key so he needs his man Quarrels (John Kitzmiller), whose scared to death of Krab Key due to the dragon… it's complicated… to help him infiltrate.  Here they also stumble upon Bond Girl #1, she of the legendary white bikini… it's more beige to be honest… in Honey Ryder as played by the legendary Ursula Andress. 

Eventually Dr. No will capture James and Honey… poor Quarrels had issues with the dragon… and after introductions Dr. No will painstakingly lay down his plan for world domination by he and his organization of SPECTRE.  I can't remember exactly what SPECTRE stands for, but I do remember the words Terrorism and Revenge are in there somewhere.  I also can't remember what Dr. No's plan is, at least not completely.  Something to do with rockets and NASA, but Dr. No spent most of his time talking about how awesome he was, more than the actual plan. 

What Dr. No needs to do is shut up, kill Bond and Honey, just like he did that other agent and his secretary, and make this nefarious plan happen.  He's totally not that going to do that.  It would've been real easy too.  He's going to regret that. 

Let's take into consideration, before weighing into Dr. No, that as of this writing this movie is 52 years old.  It's older than everybody I know except my parents.  There are people that are in this movie that died before I was even born, and I'm not a young man, and most of the people that were in this movie are no longer with is… notably the original Steve McGarrett, Jack Lord.  We miss you Jack.  Just my round-a-bout way to mention that this movie might be a little bit dated.

Ah… dated, but still plenty awesome.  There's almost something magical, even fifty years later, in watching Sean Connery cock an eyebrow, kick ass, bed the ladies, avoid really convoluted and complex methods of death until eventually saving the world with the clock ticking down to triple zero.  All of these elements are classic James Bond with the emphasis being placed on watching our dynamic, magnetic star work his way out of dire situations and into soft beds, and less so about having a coherent story to follow.  I mean come on now, Dr. No's plan and his roundabout way of executing his plan was plenty silly, but then this would become a staple of the early Bond films, and this is kind of what made them special.  One thing is for certain, watching Sean Connery work his magic, you can see why so many fans feel that the character of Bond begins and ends with this gentleman.

There are few things one could take offense with, still recognizing this is a fifty year old movie, if we were the critical type.  The objectification of the female species had been going on since the beginning of cinema, but James Bond turned it into an art form.  In future segments Bond girls will have more to do than simply being on the receiving end of some James Bond tough love, or simply be hot and endangered, but that sure didn't begin with Dr. No.  The treatment of Quarrels might be construed as a little racist… I mean James did tell this grown man, in the middle of a mission on this dangerous island, to 'fetch his shoes'.  I would've told James to fetch his own damn shoes.  Then I would've bitch slapped him.  Who the hell does he think I am?  We could also take offense at the white people playing Asians, but heck… they still do that today.  And I'm still not completely sure what Dr. No's endgame was. 

But that's just mindless prattle.  It's Sean Connery cocking eyebrows, kicking ass, knocking off the ladies and saving the world for the very first time.  And it was a very good time.  Let's see what's up with 'From Russia with Love' in a couple of weeks.
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