Thunderball (1965)

**** - Very good.

In the fourth James Bond film, our hero (Sean Connery) is taking a break at a spa where odd things are going on. He recognizes a fellow guest as a criminal, gets curious about a man with a bandaged face who never leaves his room and an attempt is made on his life. All of this is part of a plot hatched by SPECTRE and it's Number Two, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi), and Bond's presence fails to prevent it. The bandaged man has been surgically altered into the duplicate of a NATO pilot. Killing and replacing the original, the clone hijacks a nuclear bomber and its bombs are stolen. SPECTRE then extorts NATO to pay up a massive sum or one the bombs will be used on a major city. Fortunately Bond has a lead and he's soon in Nassau on the track of the dead pilot's sister Domino (Claudine Auger), who is coincidentally Largo's mistress.

First off, let's look at the flaws of Thunderball. It's too long at 130 minutes with stretches (especially in the first half) where little happens. The plot can be rather confusing at times, with the result of the audience having trouble understanding at points why Bond is doing what he's doing. Villain-wise, Largo is not nearly as interesting as Auric Goldfinger was. Plus, many of Bond's one-liners are real duds this time around.

Somehow though, I enjoyed Thunderball more than Goldfinger. It might be because that this is first film in series that is firmly in the action genre, at least by modern standards. The earlier entries had action sequences, but Thunderball has many more during it's length and spread out over the whole film. Connery is still at his peak here, as are the rest of regulars. I don't find the underwater scenes long and boring as many do. In fact for the most part I think they're exciting and very impressive pieces of cinematography. In the end, while Thunderball might not be a masterful piece of filmmaking, I still enjoyed myself enough to give it five stars.



External links

• Thunderball on IMDb
• Thunderball on Wikipedia
• James Bond 007 :: MI6 - The Home Of James Bond