Saturday, October 6, 2012

Thunderball (Terence Young, 1965) Review

Here it is, folks. The first 'bad' Bond film. I use '' because it's bad in terms of Bond films. They have they're own little area in the film industy and are in a world of their own. This means that...you know what, let me just get this out of the way. To sum up: this film is underwhelming. Why? Let's find out!

James Bond (Sean Connery) is back for his fourth mission (and makes one hell of an entrance) when a new villain, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), steals two warheads under the orders of the organisation, SPECTRE. The world is now in jeopardy and Bond teams up with Domino (Claudine Auger), the new sexy Bond girl (trust me, it's a theme). Bond must now travel to the Bahamas to confront Largo on his boat which leads to some excellent underwater scenes (yeah, that's not part of the plot but who cares?).

Getting this out of the way right now, this film is really, really boring. I can barley remember much of this film but I will say that the stuff I can remember was good. This included some pretty well recorded under water scenes, the jetpack (which is only in one scene, I might at) and...that's it. That's all that's memorable about this film. I not saying those are bad (the jetpack is one of the best gadgets in the series) but if that's all that really stood out, then I think there's something wrong...

I might as well mention some of the good things then. As I already mentioned, there are some great underwater scenes featured in this film. Bond films generally have a main setting (snow, air etc) and this one is based in the water. It was pretty innovative and works on paper but sadly, these sequences are slow and look...okay.

Thunderball is the first Bond film that I could label as 'bad'. It's slow, boring and forgettable. Largo is one of the worst Bond villains (and Activision expect us to pay for him as DLC for Goldeneye Reloaded?) and I can barely remember Domino. All in all, this one is not the best Bond film (far from it) but it has it's place...plus Tom Jones did the theme...so that's cool...

Verdict:
5.5/10
A bland, forgettable film. There are some good things here but just winds up being...a bit crap.

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