Dr. No (1962) Review

Dr. No is the first film in the James Bond franchise, released in 1962 directed by Terence Young and starring Sean Connery, Ursula Andress and Joseph Wiseman. It was produced on a $1.1 million budget but went on to earn $59.5 worldwide, popularising the character and starting one of the biggest film series in history.

As a huge Bond fan myself I’m not sure how reliable these reviews may be o someone who has not watched any of the 007 films but I will try to make these reviews cater to fans and Bond virgins alike. Dr. No is quite the weird film, not weird as in the original Casino Royale film but more so weird to talk about it, it isn’t a bad film by any stretch but it’s not brilliant or even that good for the matter but at the same time I wouldn’t say it was “meh”.

First I will talk about the positives. What we have in this film is something that is lacking in other instalments in the franchise and that is the development of the main character, James. It’s a little weird to think that now the character of Bond is so well known in pop culture that there was a time when this person had to be introduced and developed to the audience. I’m not saying every film after Dr. No just dropped you in, not telling you a single thing about him and that his character hasn’t been built upon since I’m just saying it was more noticeable and appreciated in this. From small mannerisms and how he acts, his dialogue and facial expressions, you just lean so much without even knowing.

Bond isn’t the only great character in this film either, nearly all of them are interesting and great at making you either like or dislike them, that being said some performance were very wooden as is the case with many films from this era. You feel like they’re just reading out their lines without much care of projecting themselves. Even Sean Connery wasn’t that great, he was good for most of the film but for some parts he was quite dull.

That combined with the dull camerawork, the dull performances from the rest of the cast and the sometimes dull set design the film was for the most part just dull. It had its moments but for so much potential it had they seem to have wasted a lot of it.

What is frustrating is the villain, Dr. No, it wasn’t that he was bad but because he was good. He was an interesting character with a lot of potential but in this film most of it was wasted, his screen time was about two scenes, his plan small scale and his choices sometimes ridiculous. The climax was quite disappointing when it came to Dr. No, being defeated quite easily with his unique attributes of robotic hands had no real purpose in a quick and bland fight scene.

Even the score was a bit dodgy at times, of course after Dr. No; John Barry got to work solo which benefited the future scored greatly. Another issue with sound I had was the dubbing, for some reason quite a few characters were over dubbed when the original voices were just fine so the blatant ADR which wasn’t necessary just took you out the film.

The visuals also had some problems too, you don’t have to be playing close attention to notice the awkward and lazy jump cuts which could have been easily edited around, it makes the film’s small budget show just pulls you out entirely. There is also some pretty awkward rear projection which takes any suspense out of the car chase sequence that should be thrilling.

In conclusion, Dr. No was an alright jumpstart to a huge franchise with many good things about it, but in the end it’s negatives make it a fairly lacklustre flick which I would only really watch during a bond marathon. I would not recommend you watch this movie first if you haven’t watched a Bond film before.

6/10