Dr. No (1962)

As the poster above says, 'Dr. No' was the first theatrical James Bond movie giving us one of the greatest heroes in all of cinema played by Sean Connery who would go on to make the role his own even after 50 plus years. But does being the first still make it the best you may be asking? Well, keep reading and I'll tell you. The story is a pretty simple one as far as Bond films go: the evil Dr. No is planning to topple a rocket destined for the moon in the hopes of gaining more power and influence for his masters at SPECTRE. Of course, Agent 007 is assigned to investigate while avoiding assassins, double agents, and trying to bed as many women as he can in his downtime.

While 'Dr. No' is not a bad film it's a rather underwhelming one when you watch the series as a whole. No major flaws are present outside of your usual nitpicking such as the strange jump cut editing present throughout the early films but it really all comes down to the question of would you rather be watching 'Skyfall'? or 'Dr. No'? A fellow Bond fan on YouTube would describe it best in saying 'Dr. No' is rather vanilla when compared to the other films. Nothing wrong with vanilla but when you can have it with chocolate sprinkles or fudge wouldn't you?

The biggest positive of 'Dr. No' to this day is still Connery himself and while he might not have the character down perfectly quite yet, he's still a joy to watch even with the very un-PC behavior that seems pretty silly today. Oddly the biggest negative here is one of the film's most iconic images: Ursula Andress' Honey Ryder. She may be beautiful and her presence is one of films most famous but her character has no purpose to the story itself and really just becomes another problem for James to solve. The rest of the cast does well given their roles, with Jack Lord as Felix and Joseph Wiseman as the titular doctor. Bond familiars Lois Maxwell and Bernard Lee are there, but like Connery are not the characters they would become over the course of the series.

So 'Dr. No' is still a good 007 adventure but its far from the best in the series. The film has a generic feel to it that just makes you want to pop in a more action packed or story driven film in the series. And with 23 other films that's sadly a little too easy taking the film down a few notches. If I had to suggest a film for a non-fan to start with, it won't be 'Dr. No'.

7.5/10