Comments on: Movie Notes: Thunderball

By: Movie Notes: Never Say Never Again » Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:40:48 +0000

[…] is that it’s essentially a remake of Thunderball – one of the best Bond films ever. Why Thunderball? This is where a bit of odd movie history is in order, as the man responsible is Kevin McClory, a […]

By: Movie Notes: Moonraker » Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest

Movie Notes: Moonraker » Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 05:16:01 +0000

[…] seems to be a mish-mash of earlier adventures. Bond trapped in a G-Force machine reminds me of Thunderball, with Bond strapped to an exercise machine. Drax’s audacious plot recalls Goldfinger and You […]

By: Movie Notes: You Only Live Twice » Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:13:50 +0000

[…] Next Bond Movie: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Previous Bond Movie: Thunderball […]

By: Quantum Of Solace Prep: James Bond Review » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:06:03 +0000

[…] Sean Connery is still my favorite Bond, with From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball being the triumphant trilogy. Roger Moore peaked out with The Spy Who Loved Me and then turned in a […]

By: Movie Notes: Goldfinger » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest

Movie Notes: Goldfinger » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:26:50 +0000

[…] Bond Movie: Thunderball Previous Bond Movie: From Russia With […]

By: The Prisoner: The Girl Who Was Death » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:10:55 +0000

[…] The Turkish bath scene could be a parody of the Bond movie Thunderball. […]

By: Slammerworm

Slammerworm — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 08:45:01 +0000

This was the biggest Bond box-office hit of the 1960s and along with its predecessor “Goldfinger” largely fuelled the popular culture ‘spy boom’ which captured the imagination and wallets of millions over 1964–67. Odd, considering the movie’s actual quality. Agreed, it has an undeniably classic theme song (though is “..strikes like Thunderball..” supposed to be a new mild oath?), but otherwise, I’m afraid that we’ve seen two different movies. If “Thunderball” resembles a Hitchcock movie, it’s “Rope”. After watching thirteen of them, this is the first Bond movie to invite fast-forwarding. After the cautious camp of “Goldfinger”, “Thunderball” was perhaps the first instance of a ‘back to basics’ approach. Well, one can go to the Bahamas, but this is a long way from “Dr No”’s Caribbean. Ye Gods, there’s a lot of underwater stuff towards the end. On the face of it, a nice idea; good visuals to be had (ask Jacques Cousteau). Big problem was, everything moves so slowly underwater anyway that even Peter Hunt’s whiplash editing can’t save such footage from becoming cinematic tedium. The pacing was frustratingly uneven. On land, the story started well but ran out of puff long about a quarter of the way through, had a cup of tea and a lie down while everyone was busy underwater, and never quite got up to speed again. There were some quite shoddy plot developments (just how preternaturally fit does one have to be in order to benefit from the highest setting on that wildly thrashing ‘traction table’ at the sanitarium?), and a lack of continuity (Bond’s long time CIA friend Felix Leiter was played by a soap opera-level nobody, and plotwise may as well have been a stranger). The villains were lightweight (oboy. Brief, obscured Blofeld, a foreign guy with an eyepatch and some other geeky guy. Wow), the direction was downright dull and though the girls were indeed very nice looking, none had a personality to speak of. To top it all off, Connery walked through it. True, his presence was fading in “Goldfinger”, but here James Bond is reduced further down scriptwise into a mere plot-cipher (admittedly equipped with some of the best one-liners so far), and it was difficult to feel anything for the character. Maybe Connery felt the same way. To succeed on their own terms, the Bond movies must hold to (or else play against) an established set of internal criteria, but at some point Bond also has to be about good cinema. Granted, Bond is all ‘about’ pretty girls, guns, gadgets, villains, danger, urgency, sinister hidden networks, and violent solutions to explosive situations, but plot still is important, character development even more so. In the more intriguing franchise entries, Bond’s is a dark world (though not without its lighter, more pleasurable moments), and one in which he could lose heavily (see “OHMSS”, “For Your Eyes Only”, “Licence To Kill”, “Casino Royale (2006)” etc). “Thunderball” was a long, long, languid dip in the briny and not a keeper.