It’s interesting to read some of the contemporary reviews of this film, which peg it as perhaps a too self-serious Bond film with too dark of a subject matter and too high a body count. Gang, just wait fifty years…

It was a Bond movie of its era, and it didn’t age that well — maybe that’s unfair, but I think that’s a thing you have to level against Bond movies just like any superhero movie. (I don’t mean age well in terms of, like, morality — just the literal sense, the cinematics are poor.) It’s also hard not to judge Auric Goldfinger through the lens of today’s media: I actually liked that he was a bit of a foible guy with a distinct personality and tic unlike the boring walking MacGuffins that have plagued the Craig Bond movies (with the exception of Casino Royale’s Le Chiffre, a terrific marriage of character and performance), but hard not to have one’s mind get drawn to Austin Powers and all that.

The one thing that of course ages well: Sean Connery’s performance. I’m a Daniel Craig man through and through — he was my first introduction to the character, but he’s most interesting because he stands against the traditional Bond archetype, exemplified best by Connery. So smooth! So handsome! So self-assured!

I’m not sure what I got out of this movie, if anything — it was on because Prime Video autosuggested it after rewatching Skyfall. I’d be hard-pressed to recommend it as a film, but it was a fine way to spend two hours with a burger and a few beers. I think that’s all Bond movies of this era really aspire to be, and excepting any nostalgia factor that you might have for them that’s all you can really hope for.

★★★