No Time To Die (2021)

When it is all said and done, this final Daniel Craig James Bond movie has revealed that all the major players of all the recent movies have been moving all their lives in a circle so so small, so insular that the spy's world ends up looking like a daytime soap: he/she grew up with him/her and he/she is the son/daughter/mother/father/secret twin of him/her and is the one responsible for this/that major event in this/that other character's life, and everyone's made at least two trips through the snow to a particular home in remote Norway - making No Time To Die the soapiest, most melodramatic James Bond episode yet; themes are ripped from Greek tragedy: there's long-lost family secrets, a modern-day Midas touch, and diabolical revenge sought by yet another facially disfigured male villain; but it is beautiful and engrossing and checks all of those James Bond boxes - exquisitely photographed locations, expertly choreographed action, sophistication and sexiness - not quite achieving the sublime thrills of Casino Royale but certainly not a Quantum of Solace either - in terms of James Bond quality, this is more Skyfall or Spectre.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Casino Royale (2006)

From its opening scene, a vertiginous dash through a construction site, the pace and excitement of this 2006 film of Ian Fleming's first Bond book never lets up, except perhaps for the card game where an effort is made to keep things moving with stairwell fisticuffs, a shower trauma, some defibrillator nonsense, but James has a card game to play and so the action is interrupted by really quite ridiculous scenes of the agent with a licence to kill repeatedly returning to the card table, coolly adjusting his cuff while a look of muted surprise appears on the face of bad guy Mads Mikkelsen.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

You Only Live Twice (1967)

A shuttlejacking creates tension between world superpowers and unfortunately Sean Connery's James Bond has been shot dead, bundled up like an Egyptian mummy and buried at sea, but his death is all just a cunning ruse to allow the spy to secretly follow up leads in Japan where for the first time Blofeld shows his face and, thanks to an especially sleazy screenplay by Roald Dahl, 007 experiences all of the oriental delights the Land of the Rising Sun has to offer, including betrothal to a woman, Kissy Suzuki, who spends most of her time in a wet bikini.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Never Say Never Again (1983)

The title really is a response to Sean Connery's claim that he would never play James Bond again, but twelve years after Diamonds Are Forever, at age 52, and looking like George Hamilton sporting a liberal application of spray-can baldness concealer, Connery returns to play the agent with a licence to kill in this remake of the 1967 Thunderball, this time featuring Kim Basinger, an 80s-arcade game showdown, an exploding pen, and a memorable urine joke.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

There's a long stretch in the middle of this ninth James Bond movie, the second starring Roger Moore, that plays out like the Dukes of Hazzard with a car doing a loop-the-loop over a bridge complete with zany popwhistle sound effects while a Boss Hog character gets hot and bothered in the back seat, and other stretches of the movie, which features Nick-Nack the "midget" butler, Miss Goodnight the Bond Girl and Mr Scaramonga the assassin with a superfluous nipple and a golden gun, resemble Fantasy Island and the old tv The Avengers, but not much of it feels like quality James Bond with the movie erring on the side of camp parody.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Spectre (2015)

A message from beyond the grave from Judy Dench's M sends Daniel Craig's icy James Bond from a Dias de Los Muertos parade in Mexico to Austria, Morocco and to the deserts of Northern Africa as he hunts the head of a powerful network of evil, in this 24th Bond instalment, for the most part a spectacular thrill ride but punctuated with a number of scenes in which the agent's luck is groanworthy.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Skyfall (2012)

A masterpiece addition to the Bond canon, up there with the recent Casino Royale as one of the best Bonds ever made, but why are M and the agent with the license to kill left in such a dire pickle in the end with just a doddery old Groundskeeper Willie with a shotgun to help?

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS