Dr. No
Released: 1962
Version: Video
Rated: PG
Length: Approx. 111 minutes
Main Cast: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Bernard Lee I, John Kitzmiller, Peter Burton, Lois Maxwell, Michel Mok
I like James Bond movies. However, I also realized that this is an older movie and wouldn't be quite the same as action/spy movies of today. OF course, I did expect a little bit more from this movie.
It begins in typical Bond (Sean Connery) fashion with the little eye thing following some spy and getting shot. We also have the great Bond song. Unfortunately, it then switches to some oddball music for some animated couples doing some kind of tango and then it switches to calypso or reggae with some kind of weird song about "Three Blind Mice."
The story is that Bond is investigating another agent's murder in Jamaica. We see the murder, which is done by the "Three Blind Mice."
Our first introduction to Bond is when we see him playing cards at some undisclosed location where he meets a woman (not a lady!) who ends up breaking into Bond's apartment for a quick tryst. Sickening.
Anyway, Bond goes to Jamaica and is intercepted at the airport by someone claiming to be his ride. His ride notices they're being followed and Bond has the driver lose them. Then Bond lays the smack down on the driver because somehow Bond knows the driver is in cahoots with the people in the other car that were chasing them. The driver ends up killing himself with a cigarette. (Yes, smoking is dangerous!) Actually, it had some nasty cyanide in it, I think.
Bond eventually finds out that the person he is looking for is a Chinese man named Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman) who owns an island that is feared by the locals due to a dragon (and the fact that almost everyone that goes there dies). Bond eventually gets over there, but not before he gets laid again with a beautiful Chinese enemy spy. Bond also kills a Professor.
Before Bond makes it to his date with the Chinese chick (Zena Marshall), he gets into another car chase. This is one of the lamest chases I have EVER seen. The bad guy's car is bluescreened in and when the car hits Bond's car you hear a lame clunk and it doesn't really affect Bond at all. Also the car's tires screech all over the dirt road, which is a physical impossibility. Oh, and then Bond drives under some kind of heavy equipment that is blocking the road. Why do I mention this? Because it's only assumed. The camera goes elsewhere when Bond is about to hit it or whatever it is he does. Why didn't they show it??? Couldn't they find a stunt double for Connery?
While on the island, he meets Honey Rider (Ursula Andress), a girl that collects sea shells there and wears bikinis while doing so. They both get captured eventually, but first we get to see them play cat and mouse with Dr. No's men and his dragon. The dragon is underwhelming and if you're planning on seeing this movie just for that part of the film, forget about it.
Bond and the girl have to get naked after getting captured to wash off a bunch of radioactive particles. Being only PG keeps us from seeing much other then their arms and head. However, there is a questionable part when Honey gets out of the shower where it looks like you might get a full-frontal. It happened too quickly for a good look and I did not stop the tape to try and decipher the image. What? You think I'm perverted or something???
Finally, Bond meets Dr. No and they chat about this and that. Bond is an arrogant twerp, but Dr. No isn't much better. Dr. No is supposed to be Chinese and German, but he doesn't look much like either. After a little banter, Dr. No tires of Bond and has him beaten and thrown into a cell.
James quickly escapes and looks fine after getting the snot beaten out of him. The only thing damaged is his shirt. Bond dresses up like one of the bad guys and ends up cranking up Dr. No's nuclear reactor past the safety zone. A really boring fight ensues with Bond throwing people here and there and of him kicking Dr. No into some radioactive water or some kind of nasty water.
Bond rescues Honey, escapes the building, which subsequently explodes, and finally runs out of gas in a little powerboat. Then he makes out with Honey before they are rescued by some CIA agents. The final scene is Bond making out again in the boat.
The Good Stuff:
 |
The plot was put together fairly well |
|
Sean Connery was sufficiently suave |
The Bad Stuff:
|
There's swearing |
|
Girls in skimpy outfits |
|
Girls that want to get laid for no reason and quickly too |
The Dumb Stuff:
|
The special effects STINK! |
|
The story isn't fleshed out and is boring |
|
Watch for the car chase |
Movie Vs. Book
| The movie makes Bond out to be a sex crazed jerk. He mates with some unknown lady that breaks into his apartment. He forces himself on one of Dr. No’s spies and they get it on. And then there’s Honey. In the book, Bond doesn’t do any of that. Honey is the naughty one. She has aspirations of being a call girl. She ends up making Bond promise to get it on with her when they get out of Dr. No’s clutches. |
| For some reason, Quarrel is made out to be suspicious of Bond in the movie, whereas in the book, Bond knows Quarrel from a previous mission. This also brings up the CIA agent, Felix Leiter. He is supposed to be the one that connects Bond and Quarrel in the movie, but in the book, Leiter doesn’t exist. He shows up in later stories, however. STUPID! |
| Dr.
No is not doing something with nuclear weapons, as the movie shows. Instead,
in the book, he is in the guano business and in working with the Russians in
ruining American missile testing by interfering with American radio
transmissions. The objective in the book was to knock them from the sky so
that |
| Bond is put though and obstacle course of sort in the book. In the movie, he does some of the same stuff, but it is not explained that it is an obstacle course of sorts and it isn’t as cool as the book version. Also, Honey escapes from her captors in the book instead of being a helpless damsel like the movie makes her out to be. |
| Basically, the movie just takes the main characters from the book and a few of the situations and then stirred them together. It was a detriment to the book. They skipped or changed so many of the characters and their requisite personalities that it leaves a Bond fan frothing at the mouth. |
| Let's
just leave it that the book did the characters and story much better than
this lackluster film did. |
This movie was a disappointment to me. It barely does Ian Fleming justice. However, for what it is, it's an okay movie. Watch it to see how Bond started.
STORY: 
VIOLENCE:
(Bond gets smacked around and Bond also lays the smack down on villains too.
)
SEXUAL CONTENT:
(Honey Rider and the first ugly chick)
SFX:
(What effects? Oh yeah. Watch a car blow up...and then see a building go too at
the very end...ooh aah...)
LANGUAGE:
ACTION:
OVERALL SCORE: