Reviews of Dr. No (1962) and related work
- Spin-off: From Russia with Love (1963)
- Spin-off: Goldfinger (1964)
- Spin-off: Thunderball (1965)
- Spin-off: You Only Live Twice (1967)
- Spin-off: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
- Spin-off: Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
- Spin-off: Live and Let Die (1973)
- Spin-off: The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
- Spin-off: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
- Spin-off: Moonraker (1979)
- Spin-off: Octopussy (1983)
- Spin-off: Never Say Never Again (1983)
- Spin-off: A View to a Kill (1985)
- Spin-off: Licence to Kill (1989)
- Spin-off: GoldenEye (1995)
- Spin-off: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
- Spin-off: Casino Royale (2006)
Dr. No (1962
)
Pulp superspy thriller. Sean Connery as James Bond.
‣ From Russia with Love (1963)
Sean Connery as James Bond.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Goldfinger (1964)
Sean Connery as James Bond. Seeing this as a child, I did not reflect on the rape culture expressed in Bond’s “conquest” of a clearly unwilling Pussy Galore by violence.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Thunderball (1965)
Sean Connery as James Bond.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ You Only Live Twice (1967)
Sean Connery as James Bond.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Sean Connery as James Bond.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Live and Let Die (1973)
Roger Moore as James Bond.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Roger Moore as James Bond, in the least bloody Bond movie as of 2021, which is a plus.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Roger Moore as James Bond. This is the way to do pulp superagents.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Moonraker (1979)
Roger Moore as James Bond. Kitsch.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Octopussy (1983)
Roger Moore as James Bond. The name, at least, is hard to beat.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Never Say Never Again (1983)
Seen in 2014.
Sean Connery as James Bond. The writing of Blush is moronic, but the hideous racism of the auction at Palmyra—no connection to the Syrian Palmyra—tops it off nicely.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ A View to a Kill (1985)
Roger Moore as James Bond.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Licence to Kill (1989)
Timothy Dalton as James Bond. Politically docile genre meltdown.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ GoldenEye (1995)
Pierce Brosnan as James Bond.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Seen in 2021.
A media mogul manufactures high tensions between the UK and mainland China.
Pierce Brosnan as James Bond.
The expected amount of product placement includes an Ericsson phone remote-controlling a BMW. When I first saw this movie in 2021, I was working for Tele Radio and had recently tried controlling a driverless Volvo truck remotely with EXSTER. This made the late-1990s technothriller especially cute, but the fridge-stuffing is distasteful and Jonathan Pryce’s villain—though he prefigures the post-Soviet conspiracism that would engulf the US five years later—is too crude a caricature of Pulitzer and Hearst 100 years before. Vincent Schiavelli is funny in his evil bit part as a professional fridge-stuffer and professor of forensic medicine.
fiction moving picture spin-off
‣ Casino Royale (2006)
Seen in 2013.
Daniel Craig as James Bond. A good deal less cartoonish than most of its predecessors, but no less obsessed with gadgets and hysterical masculinity. Boring poker sequences and overblown action set pieces.