3 out of 5

Director: Terrence Young

Interestingly, somewhere between the ideal amount of excessiveness in the middle Bonds that would follow and the more somber affairs of modern years comes Dr. No – the outlying sketch of Bond that cautiously steps around with a smirk and light action for less than two hours, the soon-expected bright colors and big sets hampered by a fairly empty plot and a limited budget.  What is in place from the very start, with this first entry, is Connery’s nailing the perfect balance of confident and human, sensual but purposeful.  Terence Young purposefully injected some cheek into the spy, and Sean would flourish that in later flicks, but Dr. No actually leans more toward being a traditional thriller than a wacky one – our villain does his villain bit and has a, eh, dragon, but there are no overly flashy gadgets or death traps, beyond a very dated plot / set surrounding sabotaging space missions and radiation – but Bond actually seems like a government agent here, and not just a smooth chap who smiles his way out of traps.  Bond fans have of course already seen this, but those taking the ride fresh should actually start here – it’s good to see all of the pieces – the gun, the attitude – get a bit of an origin, and makes it clear how this nudging of the genre into cross-genre entertainment opened the gates for the series that’s since followed.