Review of Thunderball (1965) by Tonto — 17 Oct 2021
Thunderball is the fourth installment of the James Bond franchise starring Sean Connery as the titular character. It's a fun movie, with the plot being that the insidious SPECTRE organization headed by Number One, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, steals two NATO atomic bombs and holds the world for ransom of £100 million in diamonds under its threat to destroy an unspecified metropolis in either the United Kingdom or the United States (later revealed to be Miami).
Bond searches for the bombs in the Bahamas, where he encounters Emilio Largo, the card-playing, eye patch-wearing SPECTRE Number Two. Backed by CIA agent Felix Leiter and Largo's mistress, Domino Derval, Bond's search culminates in an underwater battle with Largo's henchmen.
The underwater fight scenes are exciting but a little too lengthy. There are some good action scenes, and Bond uses some classic gadgets like a jetpack. Number One or Ernst Stavro Blofeld's face is never shown, and he strokes a white Persian cat which is a trope parodied in mainstream culture.
He wears a Mao suit and kills subordinates with a control switch that drops them from their chairs at the desk to a pit of fire. Emilio Largo, or Number Two, kills subordinates in a similar fashion, by feeding them to sharks.
These are classic Bond tropes I enjoyed seeing in the movie.
This review of Thunderball (1965) was written by Tonto on 17 Oct 2021.
Thunderball has generally received positive reviews.
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