The Eon Productions James Bond franchise could be considered the first real action movie franchise (in a more modern sense of the term), so it's a somewhat natural place to start. Kicked this thing off with the first three Bond films.
Dr. No (1962, Young)
Not a bad start for the series. It has some pretty campy aspects, the plot's not very sophisticated and the female characters' function is just to be Bond's fuck objects (and Ursula doesn't really do it for me). But it was an entertaining watch, and as someone noted on the ICM comment section, it has the feeling that they were doing something new for the time. Connery's a convincing Bond despite being a bit smug (think he gets a bit better in the later films). The budget isn't obviously as high as with the subsequent films and though the film doesn't feel cheap, the locations or the action scenes aren't as spectacular. There's a lot of nicely decorated rooms in the film.
From Russia with Love (1963, Young)
Overall I thought this was an improvement over the previous film though there's not the charm of being the first. Connery seems now more comfortable in his role, there's more going on with the plot, the budget has doubled since the previous film so the the locations are more grandiose and the action scenes more spectacular. The fight scene in the train is especially good. Daniela Bianchi is pretty lovely, though I wish her character had more to do.
Goldfinger (1964, Hamilton)
The only pre-Brosnan Bond film that I had previously seen, and didn't care for it much the first time. Liked it more this time around, I guess watching the previous two films helped. Goldfinger is an adequately cartoon-like villain with megalomaniac schemes, played well by Gert Fröbe. The finale with Bond fighting Oddjob is pretty great. There's one kinda minor thing that bring the film down a bit, the two secret service men who try to trail Bond and serve no real function beside being a lame comic relief.
(I was distracted a bit by the Oddjob scenes at first, 'cause I thought I remembered reading about him being convicted for a gang rape. Googled it and turned out it was the actor of Random Task, the Austin Powers character parodying Oddjob, that I was thinking of.)
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I will be watching more Bond films, going through them in chronological order. Not really sure whether I'm up to watching each entry or just selecting the ones that are the most acclaimed/essential. In any case I will not be watching the Daniel Craig films which I have already seen and I think of the Brosnan films I'm only interested in seeing Goldeneye (which I may have or may not have seen as a kid).