Bond back in action

Men's Fitness, March, 2003

WITH THE 20TH James Bond film having been released late last year and the next one not due to start production until 2005 (according to entertainment-industry trade magazine Variety), the only way to satisfy your jones for supervillians, superbabes and super action is with the James Bond Collection special-edition DVD set from MGM Home Entertainment.

THE GENIUS OF this compilation is that it spans the decades of 007 as well as the actors who have carried the license to kill. Thus, you can indulge in the time-honored tradition of arguing with your buddies over who's the best Bond of all time. Is it Sean Connery, represented in this set by Dr. No and Goldfinger; Roger Moore, who appears in The Man With the Golden Gun and The Spy Who Loved Me; Timothy Dalton in Licence to Kill; or current Bond Pierce Brosnan, whose films Goldeneye and Tomorrow Never Dies round out this collection? In a staff poll here at MEN'S FITNESS, Connery won by the length of a Walther PPK over Moore, while Dalton and Brosnan got no love at all.

REGARDLESS OF who's your favorite Bond, each of these films delivers loads of good old-fashioned, politically incorrect entertainment. (Who can forget Bond's response upon being introduced to Pussy Galore in Goldfinger? "I must be dreaming.") In addition to the films themselves, which are presented in all their letterboxed, digitally mastered audiovisual glory, the discs are packed with diabolical extras that are almost as much fun, including audio commentaries, documentaries, featurettes, music videos, theatrical trailers, photo galleries, storyboards and more. Yeah, here it comes: The JB Collection will leave you feeling shaken and stirred.

The James Bond Collection: $124.96, MGM Home Entertainment