After the awesomeness that was "Goldfinger," the Bond series had a lot to live up to. The next year gave us "Thunderball," which when adjusted for inflation is still the highest grossing Bond film of all time, even after the spanking that "Skyfall" gave the box office. "Thunderball" is still the reigning champion. It also took the over-the-top elements of "Goldfinger," which while dubious seemed not fully insane, and brought it further towards the brink of crazy. This was a movie that set the franchise going down a pretty silly road. To the film's credit, though, it's still not as over-the-top as your average Roger Moore outing.
Although how in the hell Bond managed to pull this straight out of his ass is a mystery to me.
Oddly enough that's not the most bizarre thing to happen in that opening sequence, as not 30 seconds earlier he had just finished having a dramatic fight to the death with a guy in drag. It seriously looked like he was tussling with Frank N. Furter wearing his Sunday best. It was awesome.
So what's going on in "Thunderball" besides random jet packs and dudes wearing nylons? The plot is that SPECTRE uses an impersonator to take the place of an RAF pilot who is part of a training flight that is carrying two live atomic warheads. He kills the crew and crash lands the plane in the Carribean, where the warheads are acquired and hidden in an underwater cave. SPECTRE then threatens to blow up two major cities somewhere in the world unless they get...da Da DA-NA-NA!
100 million dollars!
It's true. Anyways, after an exceedingly long sequence at a spa where an assassination attempt almost kills him in an extremely dignified fashion involving looking like he dry-humped a weight-lifting bench till he died (don't ask) Bond is sent in to find the warheads. Using all of his *ahem*...charms...he "befriends" main Bond Girl for the evening, Domino (Claudine Auger). She is the mistress of Largo (Adolfo Celi), who is Blofeld's second in command, and is SPECTRE #2. He uses her to expose Largo and in an underwater climax which became the film's most memorable sequence, lots of spear-guns are fired, the warheads are found, Largo is defeated, Blofeld is most likely pissed off, and the movie once again ends out on the ocean.
So that's "Thunderball" in a nutshell. It's one of the most popular Bond movies ever.
It's also pretty damn boring and dull. I don't like "Thunderball." Not much at all. It's probably, no definitely is, my least favorite Sean Connery Bond film. And that's including "Dr. No."
This movie should have been called "Wetsuit: The Movie." So many damn wetsuits.
Here's the thing about "Thunderball." The plot isn't bad. In fact the plot is pretty solid. The biggest issue is that there's just not that much action going on, despite what it sounds like in the description. Most of the film is just Bond walking around talking to various people, then we go underwater and get an extended diving sequence which is about as much fun as holding your breath, Bond acts like a creepy rapist, gets laid, and then goes to talk to someone else before we get another extended diving sequence. It's just a chore to watch this thing, and I could never bring myself to get invested in it.
The underwater battle at the end between Largo and the frogmen had the potential to be really exciting, and at least at the start, it is. This is mostly to do with the fact that it's such a nice change of pace for something to be actually happening in one the boring and endless underwater sections. But it wears out its welcome pretty quick for me. It feels like it's going in slow motion, which makes sense since it's underwater, but even though it makes sense it's still not very conducive to a thrilling action sequence. This is especially so since the sequence is essentially 12 minutes of the same random dude in a black diving suit and another random dude in an orange diving suit killing each other. In slow motion.
This guy was my favorite. I called him Tom.
And getting back to that whole "creepy rapist" thing. You know, there's a few issues that start to bug me at this point in the Bond franchise, specifically with Connery. The first is that Bond seems less like a suave ladies man who is just a total mack-daddy who cannot be resisted and always knows exactly what to say, and more like the women are simply so incredibly horny and stupid that they will jump on the first breathing thing they see and start vigorously rubbing their crotch on it. It's seriously two steps away from being a porn where Sean Connery is the pizza delivery guy, and Claudine Auger is the barely dressed women who doesn't have enough money to tip him.
I've got nothing but mad love for Sean Connery but seriously, at this point in the franchise it's just ridiculous. Even in "Goldfinger" Bond basically forced himself on Pussy Galore, and yeah, it was creepy back then, too. By the time we get to "Thunderball," though, I'm really rooting for the villains to castrate this randy bastard, because he's out of control. He's outright grabbing unwilling women and jamming his tongue down their throats. Any normal woman would have doused him with enough pepper spray to season a wooly mammoth, but since it's Bond they can't help themselves and instantly strip.
"Why James, you're so charming when you're a disgusting pig..."
And the only thing that I can extrapolate from the whole thing is that James Bond's penis is magical. That's the only possible explanation. In addition to its mind control abilities, it also has the power to screw the evil out of anything it desires, as we've seen several times that the ladies in the villain's camp needed only a visit from a certain "Distinguished Gentleman" to see the light and come over to Bond's side.
In Sean Connery's defense though, if there was one guy who did in fact have a magical penis...
I know that it's just something that happens in these movies, and that's fine, but you can do it well and you can do it poorly. Once "Thunderball" came about, they weren't even trying anymore. The sad part is that it actually got worse from here. Guh. That's the one thing about the Bond movies I've never really liked.
The second problem is that I'm really getting annoyed with the character of Felix Leiter being played by a different actor in every single stinking Bond film I see. Seriously, it's really obnoxious. I'm not being nitpicky, either. Of the 10 Bond films that character has been in, there have been 8 different actors playing him. And the last movie he was in he was suddenly a black dude. Is it so difficult to get an actor back? Especially when I'm supposed to know who the character is on sight? For crying out loud...
The third problem I have with these early entries in the Bond franchise is that there is a serious lack of denouement. Sequences have a tendency to end abruptly with no breathing room, and sometimes before we can even process what just went down. For instance, let's look at both the beginning and end of "Thunderball," because they're both good examples of this problem.
In the opening sequence, Bond has a fight with a guy in drag, goes to the roof where he inexplicably has a jetpack waiting for him, and uses it to escape from a bunch of bad guys running after him. Silly, yes, but still exciting. He lands right by his car, takes off the jetpack and gets in the car when the bad guys, still in pursuit, start shooting as they run towards him. For some reason deciding not to simply start driving away, he fires what seems to be water out at them from the back tail lights. Then as they're slipping and sliding around *BAM* we crash cut to the opening credit sequence and Tom Jones starts wailing about how Bond "strikes like Thunderball," whatever that means.
Um, move out of the way maybe?
The end is the worst, though. After defeating the bad guy, Bond and Domino are on a life raft for all of 30 seconds before a plane comes by to sky-hook them away and rescue them. As they fly out of the raft and into the air the music starts up and the credits start rolling. It's impossible for me to accurately convey how jarring this is. It just ends.
The best thing I can do is to ask you to imagine if in "Return of The Jedi," the Death Star blew up, everyone on Endor looked up and cheered, and the credits started rolling over the Millennium Falcon flying away from the explosion. That's what it feels like. No reunion of the characters after the fight, no funeral pyre for Darth Vader, no Luke nodding and smiling at the ghosts of his mentors and father, no final cast shot as everyone celebrates. Nope. None of that. The Death Star blew up. That's all you need to know. You see what I'm saying about winding down? It's important.
A lot of early Bond movies did this, and it's really annoying.
And as a side note, I'm pretty sure I saw Peter Lorre in there. I know Peter Lorre died a year before this movie came out, and he's not listed anywhere as being in this film, but seriously, that was him. Whoever it is, he appears at the end as this guy who just comes right the hell out of nowhere to tell Domino he defused the atomic bomb and that it won't go off now. That seems mighty nice and impressive of him since I have to assume he's just a random crew member on the boat since I have no flipping clue who he is, as I'm pretty sure he was never mentioned before. He's. Just. There. And it's a good thing, too, because Bond never does jack about the warhead. So yeah, good job, James. That's the second time in two films that you've been saved from an atomic bomb by pure luck and someone else.
So that's "Thunderball." I don't get it. I don't know why it's considered a great Bond movie, because honestly I find it more dull than "Dr. No" despite all the gadgets and zaniness.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "Thunderball" is, obviously, not a film I am a fan of. It's Connery's weakest outing, if you ask me. Honestly, I've never been able to make it through "Thunderball" in a single sitting, because I either get so bored that I need to stop it halfway and finish later, or I fall asleep. If there was a Connery Bond film I had to watch, this would be my absolute last choice.
JAMES BOND
WILL RETURN IN
"YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE"
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