3 November 2015 | Leofwine_draca

6 | Straightforward retrospective documentary

As a documentary, EVERYTHING OR NOTHING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF 007 attempts to shed new light on the much-loved film and book franchise as well as being a celebration of the topic. It succeeds in the latter part but is noticeably light in offering up anything new in way of material; Bond fans will find this all very familiar stuff indeed.



Still, I enjoyed this as a straightforward retrospective, exploring Ian Fleming's life and his original stories before working its way chronologically through the Bond films and their actors. This was made to tie in with SKYFALL and the 50th anniversary of Bond, so it's pretty comprehensive, with lots of clips and interesting reveals about the behind-the-scenes production wrangling with rights issues and the like.



The most fun part of all this is the talking head footage of pretty much every important Bond participant, including Barbara Broccoli. The only one missing is the ever-grumpy Sean Connery, but he isn't missed too much. Roger Moore is a delight as ever, and it's nice to see Christopher Lee in what would be one of his last screen appearances. I'm not sure what Bill Clinton is doing here, but he's here nonetheless. EVERYTHING OR NOTHING will do nothing to change your opinion or outlook about the Bond franchise but it whiles away the time readily enough and certainly puts you in the mood for a Bond film or two.