This started, as do most of my articles these days, with a podcast. The Rewatchables covered Casino Royale a while back, so I rewatched it to listen to that episode. It had been a while, and I loved it even more than I thought I did. This made me want to revisit Quantum of Solace to see if I still hated it (I do). Then I thought, “Fuck it, I’ll watch all of the Daniel Craig Bond movies.” This helped me to enjoy No Time to Die so much more this time around, since the Craig Bond movies are much more serialized than any other actor’s tenure. Anyway, finished with that, and decided to go back to the beginning and work my way through every one of these movies.
The first thing that surprised me was how little I had actually seen of the series. I consider myself a Bond fan, but the only tenures I’ve seen in their entirety are Brosnan and Craig. Before this, I had only seen two of the Connery movies (Dr. No and Goldfinger), and that’s it before Brosnan. I had not seen On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, nor had I watched a single Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton film. So this was mainly new territory for me, and I suppose I’ll find out how true a fan I am of this series.
Before I get to the ranking, I wanted to get into my overall thoughts on Connery as Bond. Even though his tenure ended before my birth, I always considered him THE James Bond. Everyone else is putting their own stamp on the character, but he’s the original. Maybe this is why I never watched all his films. I watched a couple and thought they were all like that. Imagine my surprise when I ended up thinking some of these kind of suck. Despite this, I just like seeing Connery in the role. While I don’t want to watch most of these ever again, I wouldn’t mind them as background noise because there’s a comforting quality to them. I can’t say that about the Craig movies, even though I like them more. Connery brought something to the role that made me just want to hang out with him, and I can’t say that about the rest of the crew.
Finally, I put Never Say Never Again on here. I know it’s not canon, but it is Sean Connery playing James Bond so I’m including it.
1. From Russia with Love
This is generally cited as the prototypical Bond film and rightfully so. It established everything I love about the series: location shooting (this movie made me start Googling traveling to Istanbul, a trip I have neither the time nor money to take), Blofeld and S.P.E.C.T.R.E., Q and the gadgets, etc. It further established Connery in the role. It featured a truly great villain in Robert Shaw’s Red Grant, and the train fight is a series standout. The story moves quickly and is easy to follow, which is possibly the most important aspect in a series that can get convoluted with its villain’s plans. Put simply, this is what I think of when I think “Classic Bond,” which makes it my favorite Connery entry.
2. Goldfinger
When I first planned this, I assumed Goldfinger would be first, and it would be more about figuring out the order for the rest. From Russia with Love surprised me, but Goldfinger is still an extremely close second. This continues my idea of a classic Bond film, and it features my favorite theme by far. I don’t actually care for the lyrics of the title song, but every time the music kicks in during the film, it turns boring moments into classic moments. And it has some all-time characters in Goldfinger, Odd Job, and Pussy Galore. Maybe not characters, but at least character names.
3. You Only Live Twice
This is where we get into Austin Powers territory, and I love it. By far the goofiest entry, what with the volcano lair, ninja school, evil cat stroking, piranhas, rocket guns, Donald Pleasance, and a cigarette gun. I can see why people would hate this or find it too silly, but this is what I want from at least one film in every Bond actor’s tenure (this is why I like Spectre, even though it’s generally considered one of the worst movies in the series). I just wish Connery had called it quits for good after this. It would have been such a high note to go out on, instead of his two unnecessary and forgettable comebacks.
4. Dr. No
Honestly, I appreciate this one just to revisit and compare it to what the series has become vs. how it started. My favorite element to compare: villain plans. The Craig movies kept introducing villains higher up the food chain that have been orchestrating decades-long plans seemingly just to get to Bond. Not even to kill him, but to destroy his soul. Part of Dr. No’s plan in this film is to give a henchman a big spider, which the henchman puts in Bond’s bed. Bond wakes up and eventually kills it with his shoe. I love the new films, but I miss simple shit like, “Take this big spider and put it in Bond’s hotel room. Maybe it’ll bite him. Fuck it.”
5. Diamonds Are Forever
You could actually shuffle these bottom three because they have one thing in common: they’re boring. You would think sending Bond to Vegas would make for some of the funnest shit in the series, but this really did not need to take place there. I just couldn’t get into the diamond smuggling plot, and bringing Blofeld back yet again at the end was just tiresome. This was Connery’s first return to the series, and it not only completely did away any lasting goodwill from the far superior On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, it just seemed like he wasn’t having fun in the role any longer.
6. Never Say Never Again
This is just a rights-battle remake of Thunderball that was made…out of spite? I don’t feel like looking any further into the behind-the-scenes stuff because this movie didn’t work for me at all. Aside from commenting on Connery’s age, nothing interesting is done with the fact that a 50+ year-old man is doing silly spy shit (to be fair, the canon series at the time was in the same boat with the even older Roger Moore). I guess I like it a little more than Thunderball because there are slightly fewer underwater sequences. But in the place of that is a truly baffling video game scene in the casino, which is there because this was made in the 80s? I don’t know, and I don’t care.
7. Thunderball
I didn’t know this until I watched Thunderball, but apparently I fucking despise underwater scenes. They just bring this movie to a screeching halt every time. There’s one extended sequence in which henchmen recover some warheads and then cover a plane with a tarp, and we are shown every single moment of this. Maddening. Maybe I’m being too harsh on this one, but when I try to think about any other element of this film, all I can remember are those boring underwater scenes. Oh wait, I also remember that the movie starts with a stupid jetpack, and then Bond spends way too long at a health spa. Yeah, fuck this movie.
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