Bond Revisited: Thunderball (1965)

Thunderball. Yeah. When I was a kid it wasn't my favourite. There was too much going on underwater, too much going on in general, but nothing really happening. The concept is great... Spectre has devised a plot so devious it requires a bloke to get facial reconstructions, adjusting his voice and all to pretend to be someone else. This is all to get two nukes that Spectre can use to blackmail the UK and US to give them 100 million in diamonds.

I've got questions.

You see the concept is great if you keep it simple with them holding bombs for hostage for ransom and that the government have four days to accept or anyone's a target.

Instead we've got a bloke with an eyepatch called Largo (Adolfo Celi) who's the chief architect of this plot, and he's dating the sister to the guy who got 'copied'. Now, I wonder - why didn't they just threaten the bloke with the fact that his sister would get murdered? So simple. Using a familiar device, and an understanding one at that. Instead there's this gaping big plot hole as to why this all happens, except for Bond to figure it all out easier. It's like, why not have the man himself ask Bond for help, and then say, there's nothing he can do anyway, or something?

Then we'd have a noble character instead of one who gets offed by what seems to be a ginger trope in the Bond films, with a second evil woman (Luciana Paluzzi) working for Spectre. This time she uses sex as a plot device!

They really went overboard this time. Literally. Thunderball earned a whopping 140 million, 10 million more than Goldfinger, but it's nobody's favorite. Despite having a 7 on imdb. The set pieces are amazing, so are the stunts, and it's fun to see Terence Young returning, which would be his last turn at directing a Bond film. Time hasn't looked favourably on Thunderball, and it's certainly startling to see how it just ups the game on sexism.

The film starts off with Bond in a spa of some sort, post-opening sequence where he fights a bloke pretending to be his own widow, and Bond flies off with a jetpack. A jetpack. And then gets chased by henchman and uses his Aston Martin to spray the bad guys down with water.

I just, I've got no words.

I'd forgotten how silly this film was.

Anyway, back to the spa. Bond is particularly sexual predator-like against a nurse (Molly Peters) working there who's checking his vitals. She ends up strapping him down to a "stretching" machine, which has him face down. "First time I've really felt safe all day," she proceeds to say. This is some restraining order level shite. When he almost gets killed on said machine, she's all worried he'll tell off about her, and then says he can be persuaded otherwise - if she - lo behold - sleeps with him.

I don't wonder now why I thought From Russia with Love was romantic. Compared to this it really genuinely was. Suddenly she's alright with him in the end, as if forcing a woman to have sex with you and it's good sex will make her turn around about you being a complete a-hole.

We've also got him threatening Miss Moneypenny with putting her over his knee - thankfully she shuts him down with a - "On yoghurt and lemon juice?" Laughing. It's all so funny. It's the sixties, which I must fiercely remind myself of. An age where nudity became more of a deal in films, and women were frequently seen with their kit off in sex comedies. There's also the naked ladies swimming about in the intro as well, which was a proper first.

Besides this there's the fact that Bond sleeps with the evil redheaded woman for home and country, and then she talks about his sexual prowess making other women swoon and become good. Not this one she says, and this was because of critique on how they handled Pussy Galore's turn towards working with Bond against Goldfinger.

They handled the female lead Domino (Claudine Auger) better this round, though, rather too quickly again as well. One second it's all about romance, then it's all about 'your brother is dead' to her trying to figure out where they're keeping the goods - to her offing Largo. The last bit was the good bit. It felt right, though, the ending came too abruptly to my taste. I have so many questions about what happened to the third bloke, the one who couldn't swim and in turn saved Domino, besides throwing the remote for the bomb. He hopped into the sea, and the others went out of the water without him.

I can just imagine him clinging to his life preserver in the water being all "Guys? Guys!!!"

I suppose it's too much to ask for character development, but the film needs more polishing in terms of editing. The only redeeming quality the film has is how well-made it is, and Q popping round all grumpy saying that Bond has no respect for what he does for him. Bond doesn't have a lot of respect in general, or any redeeming qualities in this film.

The sense of Bond having class is gone, and he's mostly a brute. I can see why Sean Connery tired of this, especially when they don't give his character any depth. Bond deserves better than this. Yes, he can be cold and ruthless, but there are ways of showing this.

This is how I end my review - ugh.

Highlights 

- Q showing up all grumpy.
- How stupid the plot is. It's a whole new level.
- Paula seemed rad, and wasn't sexualized by Bond which was new. He even seemed sad she was dead for a couple of frames.
- Sean Connery looking terrified of sharks.

Downsides

- The whole shady predator style Bond has the entire film.
- The whole 'for queen and country' about having sex with the Spectre-chick.
- The underwater scenes.
- The pre-credits scene was just too silly, and poorly connected to the rest of the film.
- All that I wrote above thb.
- The one dude who couldn't swim and his whereabouts at the end of the film. It would have been typical a Roger Moore Bond film to have one shot of him. That would have been funny.