Official Synopsis:
The adventures. The villains. The women. The gadgets. Now on 4 newly restored DVD volumes no Bond fan can be without!
Collection One Includes:
- Goldfinger
- The World Is Not Enough
- Diamonds Are Forever
- The Man With The Golden Gun
- The Living Daylights
Collection Two Includes:
- Thunderball
- Die Another Day
- The Spy Who Loved Me
- A View To A Kill
- License To Kill
Our Take:
If there's a cooler movie character out there than James Bond, I can't imagine who it is. The franchise is over 40 years old, just launched another smash hit film, and yet it shows no signs of waning in popularity. Even though all of the James Bond films have appeared on DVD twice before, MGM has upped the ante by releasing The James Bond Ultimate Collection, a four-box set that includes every single Bond film as a two-disc special edition. See what I mean? Cool.
While the previous Bond special edition DVDs certainly weren't hurting for extras, these two-disc sets appear to have taken a trip through Q's lab before hitting the streets, as they are packed with every conceivable kind of bonus feature you can imagine. Unfortunately, we did not receive the complete box sets for review purposes, just one two-disc movie from each set. But just looking at those, I found numerous brand-spanking new extra features.
The highlights, of course, are the new audio commentaries by Roger Moore on his Bond films. Regardless of which Bond you prefer, it's still exciting to have any of the 007s sit for a commentary. In addition, there are a ton of completely new extra features such as deleted scenes, archival interviews, featurettes, test footage, alternate angle footage, storyboards, and interactive guides. Plus, all the original extra features have been carried over from the previous James Bond Special Editions, so these really are complete in every aspect.
As usual, the collections are not presented in chronological order, but rather a random grouping of movies. For my money, the first collection skews just a bit better than the second one (except for the awful The World Is Not Enough), but I don't know how you could not want to just have the entire collection of Bond flicks.
For once, when a studio calls something the "ultimate edition" they're really telling it as it is. This is the ultimate in DVD for James Bond fans.
Overall Picture:
Movies (average): B+
DVD sets: A+
- Mike Spring
Editor
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