Avis Metacritic

The other is a scene, improvised on the set, when Bond does a double take on seeing Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington (recently stolen from London's National Gallery) in Dr No's palatial living room. It's the funniest moment in any Bond picture and one of cinema's great art jokes.

The beginning of the super-successful franchise, this remains one of the most satisfying Bond films.

First screen adventure of Ian Fleming's hardhitting, fearless, imperturbable, girl-loving Secret Service Agent 007, James Bond, is an entertaining piece of tongue-in-cheek action hokum. Sean Connery excellently puts over a cool, fearless, on-the-ball, fictional Secret Service guy. Terence Young directs with a pace which only occasionally lags.

As memorable as anything in the series (the arteries hadn't hardened yet) are modest highlights like Bond's encounter with a tarantula, Honeychile's first appearance as a nymph from the sea, the perils of Dr No's assault course of pain.

All of the elements of the formula are there, but in pleasing moderation.

There are no gadgets, forcing Bond to rely on his ingenuity (in one scene, when he needs to breathe while submerged, he uses hollowed-out reeds as air tubes). The single car chase is reasonably straightforward. And, for the only time in the series, 007 is unmistakably brutalized, appearing bloody, beaten, and disheveled as a result.

A solid, surprisingly modest spy thriller, enlivened by Sean Connery's screen charisma and occasional hints of the extravagance to come.

This lively, amusing picture is not to be taken seriously as realistic fiction or even art, any more than the works of Mr. Fleming are to be taken as long-hair literature. It is strictly a tinseled action-thriller, spiked with a mystery of a sort. And, if you are clever, you will see it as a spoof of science-fiction and sex.