Review of Thunderball (1965) by Jaime L — 21 Aug 2015

Thankfully Terence Young is back at the helm of the 007 franchise, however while this pales in comparison with his previous efforts, it takes bold strides, while attempting to deliver a return to form.

Spectre are back again, this time stealing 2 nuclear warheads and threatening the US and UK with imminent action, unless they pay a huge amount of money. With the UK reluctant to pay, Bond heads up an operation in the Bahamas, in order to find the stolen warheads before its too late.

Thunderball is extremely packed full of content, with each act feeling like a completely different beast. This isnt bad at first, as we the audience are really getting a full and intriguing story, one that has a sense of urgency about it.

With Young back behind the helm, the tension is ramped up to 100 again, with brilliant framing techniques used to showcase wonderful, stealthy espionage sequences. Lighting, camera angles and shadow are all key here and he uses every tool in the box to get the job done.

The first act is especially spell binding, as we a treated to some fantastic little moments, which can be arguably better than some of the franchises larger moments. It is this attention to detail that makes Young the right guy for the job, his films arent flawless, but his attention for the smaller details and important moments are what sets his Bond outings aside from the rest.

He even gets seriously bold and decides to shove in a whole bunch of under water action sequences, however fantastical they may start off as being, by the finale, they do wear a bit thin and it has a sense of monotony that weights the whole thing down.

The cast all do a wonderful job here minus Adolfo Celi as the villain Largo, he visually suits the role, however he just doesnt have much to do apart from being a one eye shark lover, who is following protocol.

He becomes extremely boring, pretty soon in and his motives are largely unclear, throughout the entire film. Luckily the film has enough set pieces to entertain the most brain dead of monkeys and a huge catalogue of characters to sink your teeth into.

I even love the inclusion of a stronger female characters, who are more than just pretty faces, it mixes things up a little and they actually make some of the more interesting characters in the piece.

This film sadly loses its footing the further on it gets. What starts off are a contained story soon turns into a jumbled mess. Huge battles underwater with a red vs black approach, makes deciphering characters pretty difficult, it loses a grip on the bigger goal, with no real threat being placed on the danger in the 3rd act and ultimately the film could have done with being 20 minutes shorter in length.

Thunderball is not a failure, in fact its completely overlooked for all the things it does so wonderfully right. It is just impossible to ignore the facts however that the formula, even though Young tries to stir it up, is getting tedious and the jumbled mess of a final act, just doesnt do the great work achieved justice.

Worth a watch.