The first obvious thing I noticed about this Starz documentary is just how horrible the prints are of almost all the James Bond films that they used in the film. It looks like they lifted them old VHS tapes!! And, this was made worse because I was watching it on a 58" HD TV--which only made the crappiness more apparent. And, the show's nice graphics and style also add to the crappiness of the film clips! Oddly, by the way, SOME of the clips from "Dr. No", "From Russia With Love", "Thunderball" and "Goldfinger" are shown in black & white!! What's with that?! These were color films and some clips from these films were color and some were not. Couldn't they have gotten anything better?
"True Bond" is about Ian Fleming and his inspiration for his James Bond character. Fleming was in Naval Intelligence and in this capacity met Dusko Popov--a double-agent who worked for the Allied against the Nazis during WWII. Like Bond, Popov was a suave playboy who lived an amazing life. His carefree persona hid who he really was--a very dangerous man! The film explores the similarities of Popov to Bond as well as the differences. And, fortunately, there is some old footage from TV with an older Popov, so you can actually hear from him--even though he died decades ago.
As far as the style of the documentary goes, it seems like it was written by serious fans of the movies. They seemed to think folks like Jaws and Hugo Drax were welcome additions to the movies, though die-hard fans of the original Fleming books would probably be appalled by this (as it's NOTHING like the characters from the books or like Popov's associates). What you think about all this is dependent on what type of Bond you like.
So is it worth seeing? Well, yes. But I sure think the film could have been better. Dropping the Bond film clips altogether would have only improved the film and should ONLY have been used if they weren't a serious distraction (like they were). And, it seems to me that too much time was spent on talking about space-age gadgets instead of what it really meant to be a spy. But, learning about Popov and Pearl Harbor (among other things) make this worth seeing.
"True Bond" is about Ian Fleming and his inspiration for his James Bond character. Fleming was in Naval Intelligence and in this capacity met Dusko Popov--a double-agent who worked for the Allied against the Nazis during WWII. Like Bond, Popov was a suave playboy who lived an amazing life. His carefree persona hid who he really was--a very dangerous man! The film explores the similarities of Popov to Bond as well as the differences. And, fortunately, there is some old footage from TV with an older Popov, so you can actually hear from him--even though he died decades ago.
As far as the style of the documentary goes, it seems like it was written by serious fans of the movies. They seemed to think folks like Jaws and Hugo Drax were welcome additions to the movies, though die-hard fans of the original Fleming books would probably be appalled by this (as it's NOTHING like the characters from the books or like Popov's associates). What you think about all this is dependent on what type of Bond you like.
So is it worth seeing? Well, yes. But I sure think the film could have been better. Dropping the Bond film clips altogether would have only improved the film and should ONLY have been used if they weren't a serious distraction (like they were). And, it seems to me that too much time was spent on talking about space-age gadgets instead of what it really meant to be a spy. But, learning about Popov and Pearl Harbor (among other things) make this worth seeing.