No, Mr. Bond I Expect You to Die!

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MOVIE REVIEW
Goldfinger
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Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Year Released: 1964
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director(s): Guy Hamilton
Writer(s): Richard Maibaum (screenplay by,) Paul Dehn (screenplay by,) Ian Fleming (novel)
Cast: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, Tania Mallet, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee, Martin Benson, Cec Linder, Austin Willis, Lois Maxwell
Where To Watch: Available to stream on all major platforms

RAVING REVIEW: I would argue that this is the first film where James Bond entirely becomes James Bond. From the gadgets, car, suave demeanor, villain, henchmen, etc., it all comes together here.

While DR. NO is arguably one of, if not the most influential films in the series, it didn’t quite have the entire blueprint for Bond figured out. FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE felt like it was trying to go in an entirely different direction in comparison. Then GOLDFINGER comes around and truly defines what James Bond films will be for some time.

Sure, Bond evolves with time and will continue to do so, but much of what I mentioned above has stayed consistent and likely will. I was impressed with how much Connery became Bond here. He was leery of the script initially but ultimately went ahead with the role and ended up with his best performance as Bond so far.

Although this is a small sample size so far, I will take GOLDFINGER as number one, DR. NO as number two, and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE as three. So far, none of them have been bad or even approaching bad. They may be a little dated, but Connery makes Bond such a fun character to watch that you often forget any of the negatives.

Next weekend I get to check out THUNDERBALL, and I’m pretty sure that’s the first of the films I haven’t seen in this franchise. I don’t know that for sure, but nothing about it sounds even remotely familiar to me. I believe I have four more Connery performances, including the non-official film NEVER SAY NEVER again. I wanted to ensure my journey was complete, so I included that and CASINO ROYALE.

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