James Bond movies aren't supposed to be Merchant-Ivory Productions, but they have to at least hold your interest from time to time. For all of the Bond films I've seen, few have disappointed me more than 1965's Thunderball. From beginning to end, it's one big mess with a boring plot, a boring villain, boring action sequences and and way, way, WAY too much underwater footage. Surely this film was shot just at the advent of the underwater camera, there is no other way to describe the interminable diving scenes.
It stars Sean Connery as the suave 007 agent. This time around, he must prevent the evil Number Two (Adolfo Celi) from detonating a weapon that could destroy countless lives. The adventure takes Bond to the Bahamas, a lethal health spa, and a shark-infested swimming pool. While the shark scenes were kind of cool, and there was a marginally interesting bit near the beginning where a plane is commandeered in an inventive way, Thunderball vastly overrates its ability to maintain any pacing or direction.
Speaking of direction, this installment has Terence Young behind the lens, but I tend to think even Tom Jones (who sings the title sequence) might have been a better choice. The editors are equally to blame. The aforementioned underwater scenes comprise more screen time than all underwater scenes in all the other Bond installments combined. The screenwriters must have temporarily forgotten that the best Bond films vary from air, land, and sea -- never really spending too much time in one locale.
This is Connery's worst turn as Bond, changing from disinterested to unmotivated in each scene. His Bond girls (Claudine Auger and Luciana Paluzzi) are cookie-cutter characters with absolutely no depth. I know what you're thinking, how much depth are they supposed to have? Well, even the most hollow of Bond Girls usually have some dimension to speak of. Here, they're onscreen, they're offscreen, and we forget them entirely. And then, of course, there's the M's and Q's, who barely have any screen time at all.
I tend to get Thunderball's title mixed up with Rollerball, a 70's film which saw a remake this year. Despite the negative reviews Rollerball got from a lot of critics, I wonder if it could be even a fraction as bad as Thunderball. Indeed, if it weren't for the 1985 Roger Moore vehicle A View To A Kill, I might label this one as the worst Bond movie yet.
