Sean Connery
James Bond 007
6-Film Collection
[4K/Digital Code]
Life’s always interesting when you’re married to a feminist. You have to pick your battles, you know? One of them was the battle of whether or not we could watch James Bon movies in the household. The feedback I got was that we weren’t. I wasn’t going to fight that battle because I knew it was only a matter of time before my wife (ahem…partner) would change their mind…as they often do about most things. She’s focused on something else right now and doesn’t seem to have strong opinions on James Bon anymore. Maybe she found out Gloria Steinem was in one of them, I don’t know.
I’ve only been a causal James Bond fan throughout my life, having played Goldeneye with my friends as a kid, and I watched one of the Peirce Brosnan movies in the theatre. The one with December. Anyhoo, Sean Connery is what really interests me, and Warner Brothers is finally collecting all his 007 movies in one box set. Sorry, feminists! Yay, the rest of us!
I didn’t know what to expect, but once I got the vibe, they became a delightful distraction and a world I liked to inhabit.
The formula for Sean Connery’s 007 movies is simple. James Bond is our escort through this make-believe world of adventure and espionage. There is a big threat he and British Intelligence have to get to the bottom of, and throughout, there are obstacles, and women, James Bond has to overcome (sometimes they are one and the same) before fighting the big boss. It’s like a video game in many ways. Sean Connery is smooth, suave, confident, and just rolls with the punches even when he makes dumb decisions. The films themselves are all campy and playful, and I personally preferred Dr No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger, probably because they’re the scrappier of the bunch. Thunderball is where the budget explodes, and afterwards the plot gets a little too drawn out to really stay very exciting. It’s like there aren’t enough interesting mini-bosses to keep your attention.
The Sean Connery 007 movies are fun and cute (perhaps even intentionally so) and teeter cleverly between comedy and action. There are babes aplenty and it’s obvious why Connery is so revered in the role. He’s not just the originator but brings an effortless smoothness to the character where, as the old saying goes, women want him, men want to be him, and everyone wants him dead.
