Amazon.com video review:
James Bond's fourth adventure takes him to the Bahamas, where
a NATO warplane with a nuclear payload has disappeared into the
sea. Bond (Sean Connery) travels from a tony health spa (where he
tangles with a mechanized masseuse run amuck) to the casinos of Nassau
and soon picks up the trail of SPECTRE's number-two man, Emilio Largo
(Adolfo Celi), and his beautiful mistress, Domino (Claudine Auger),
whom Bond soon seduces to his side. Equipped with more gadgets than
ever, courtesy of the resourceful "Q" (Desmond Llewelyn), agent
007 escapes an ambush with a personal-size jet pack and takes to the
water as he searches for the undersea plane, battles Largo's pet
sharks, and finally leads the battle against Largo's scuba-equipped
henchmen in a spectacular underwater climax. This thrilling Bond entry
became Connery's most successful outing in the series and was remade
in 1983 as Never Say
Never Again, with Connery returning to the role after a
12-year hiatus. Tom Jones belts out the bold theme song to another
classic Maurice Binder title sequence. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com video review:
Seven films. Four Bonds. One set. This sprawling collection surveys
over 30 years of James Bond skullduggery, from the cold war tensions of
the 1960s to the international free-for-all of the present. Sean Connery
remains the coolest of the Bonds, a ruthless agent with dry martini wit and
a way with the women, and in Goldfinger his steely presence helped
forge the Bond formula of tongue-in-cheek wit, wondrous secret agent toys
created by Q, and megalomaniac supervillains bent on world destruction.
Thunderball upped the Bond ante with the most ambitious
adventure--and
budget--to date. Roger Moore brought an altogether lighter tone to 007 with
Live and Let Die, softening Connery's rough edges with a more
romantic persona as the films became even more exotic. After a brief
digression into outer space, For Your Eyes Only returned Bond to
globetrotting high adventure and teamed him with his most endearing ally
(Topol as a gregarious smuggler). Timothy Dalton made his second and final
appearance as Bond in Licence to Kill, the toughest of the Bond
films
since Connery's early efforts. Though not a fan favorite, it's a sleek,
solid adventure with an edge missing from the Moore pictures. Pierce
Brosnan
is the latest to take on 007's licence to kill, combining the best of
Connery's cool and Moore's humor. GoldenEye is the best Bond film in
years, a grand globetrotting adventure with lovely Bond girls and a tough
new M (Judy Dench). Tomorrow Never Dies doesn't recapture that magic
mix of action, gadgetry, and romance, but does feature the first Bond girl
to match 007 blow for blow: Hong Kong action superstar Michelle Yeoh. Taken
together, this set is a veritable cross-section of the many faces of James
Bond. All that's missing is George Lazenby. Do I hear a nomination for
set 2? --Sean Axmaker
