Dr. No

I'd seen two James Bond films before, pretty much by accident (by tagging along with some friends to the movies). It's a rather long series though and it's the kind I prefer to watch from the start. Since I'm not big on classic cinema, it took me a while to get around to it. But today it finally happened. I was ready to sit down for Dr. No.

Even though I'm hardly a Bond connoisseur, the series is so engrained into our pop culture that I instantly recognized many familiar elements. I was actually quite surprised to see so many trademark Bond things were already part of the first film. Of course, when this was filmed there were already some novels to fall back on.

While quite cheesy by modern standards, the film is nicely paced and pleasantly over-the-top. I actually expected a slightly more serious and boring film, but it's almost like watching a bigger budget Ishirô Honda flick (only without the monsters). Not terrible and I'm sure it won't be long before I'll get around to the first couple of sequels.