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

Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

Given it is essentially a string of twelve or thirteen dialogues between Hercule Poirot and one suspect after another aboard the snowed-in Orient Express, scene of a ghastly murder, it is surprising how engaging Sidney Lumet's 1974 film version of Agatha Christie's book is, helped of course by its all-star cast and the fact the story is inspired by the real-life Lindbergh kidnapping, a crime that captivated and so outraged the world one suspects it would have even turned Agatha Christie's world famous eggheaded Belgian detective into a revenge-murder conspirator.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Hunt For Red October (1990)

In this first of the Jack Ryan movies, released in 1990 with Alec Baldwin as Tom Clancy's hero, Jack Ryan is a mere "expendable" analyst but even so he is the only one among CIA heavies and the navy elite of two countries who can intuit what is really going on (nothing terribly thrilling) when a Russian nuclear submarine, the Red October, goes awol.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

The sought-after archeological wonder in number three is the Holy Grail but Indy's biggest challenge isn't death-defying derring-do as he races the Nazis to decipher biblical clues and decode Knights Templar maps but his father, the doddering academic Dr Jones Snr played hilariously by Sean Connery.

★★★★☆

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