Thunderball (1965) Review

Thanks to Goldfinger, James Bond was bigger than he had ever been before so the producers decided to make the biggest Bond film of all. They chose Thunderball to adapt but because of a complicated legal dispute between Fleming and Kevin McClory for the rights of the novel, the film makers had no choice but to bring him on board as producer. While they asked Guy Hamilton to return to direct he said he felt too “creativity drained” after Goldfinger, so they brought back Terrence Young who directed the first two Bond films. Thunderball was made on a budget of $9 million which was $6 million more than Goldfinger’s, and adjusted for inflation Thunderball was the highest grossing Bond film until Skyfall in 2012.

But success doesn’t always mean greatness as, in my opinion; Thunderball is one of the weakest Bond films in the entire franchise. I will get to that later though as, just because it’s a weak film, it still has plenty going for it. For example the cinematography was great, it made the film feel really big with huge long shots of massive sets and the new wide screen aspect ratio only amplified this. A couple of characters again are fun to watch and somewhat well performed even if they did feel a tad dull at times. It’s much bigger budget showed which made the film feel very large and epic and again, a great cold war era spy atmosphere was great. The music is as always wonderful

Unfortunately though its negatives outweighed its positives, a big one for me is the characters, one of my favourite parts of cinema is characters, their personalities, dialogue and interactions with each other but in Thunderball 90% of everyone on screen is dull and boring with major characters like Domino and Largo having next to no personality, what makes this even more offensive is the fact that none of these people are bad actors, they are all great actors but they don’t have anything to work with at all.

Of course the biggest flaw for me is the pacing and action, the choice of underwater for the final battle to take place was idiotic, you move slower underwater and so the action is much slower, it doesn’t matter how grand the score is or if James is wearing a underwater jet pack, the swimming and flailing around is laughable and boring. When it came to the final fight on the boat I was cringing and laughing, the use of sped up footage and jump cuts were horrible to watch and what should have been a tense battle was just ridiculous and humiliating. Considering how promising the first half of this film was, come the last half the film just fell off a cliff and I was honestly considering turning it off.

In conclusion this is a poorly paced, boring mess with lifeless characters and awkward action and editing. Even in a Bond movie marathon I recommend skipping to the next one.

4.5/10