October 11, 2012

Dr. No



Dr. No, 1962. A British intelligence agent investigates a colleague's disappearance.

Directed by Terence Young. Written by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood & Berkely Mather, based on a book by Ian Fleming. Starring Sean Connery.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent). The plot starts to fall apart in the last 15 minutes or so. For instance, why does a tube that carries large amounts of water lead to the lobby? And why does no one care that almost all of the bad guys got away?
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent). I couldn't help noticing that the only details about Dr. No's character that were kept from the book (where he's a fairly interesting villain) are his physical appearance. This despite his being played by a white guy.
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good). I like how it's relatively light on action. It has room to breathe and build.
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 4/4 (Great)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). I loved most of this movie. It's loaded with beautiful mid-century pulp-book-cover-illustration style, the score is crazy fun, and of course Sean Connery is cool. Unfortunately, it's also riddled with racism.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.9/4 (Good)

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