Review of Thunderball (1965) by Vidyabum — 21 Oct 2021

Having recently seen all Bond movies + Never say never again, I made a list of the movies from best to worst.

Thunderball is at the bottom. This is hands down the worst Bond movie. It's also the only movie of the franchise that literallyHaving recently seen all Bond movies + Never say never again, I made a list of the movies from best to worst.

Thunderball is at the bottom. This is hands down the worst Bond movie.

It's also the only movie of the franchise that literally angered me beyond any desire to even talk about it.

Plot:

Bond's in a spa(no particular reason). Someone tries to kill him with a back stretcher(ditto). He then decides to act upon it by banging the hot nurse. Coming out of bed after that, he coincidentally finds a corpse. Several people try to kill him. He decides to then not call the police, or MI6, and goes back to bed.

He then comes home to MI6, and nuclear bombs have been stolen. In the dossier for the mission to retrieve them, codename Thunderball, he coincidentally finds a picture of the guy he saw dead at the spa, and a coincidental hot girl. He says he's going after the hot girl.

The hot girl is coincidentally the mistress of the big villain of the movie. When Bond finds the villain, he says "I thought I saw a Spectre on your shoulder".

The villain says yes.

Now if you think that randomly finding a corpse in a spa and getting attempted twice, then by pure luck the corpse is that of a pilot of bombs that are being coincidentally stolen that very night, then he coincidentally gets a picture of some random girl, who coincidentally happens to be with the villain, who freely admits to being the villain, if you thought that was poor writing, you're not wrong, but you're barely touching the surface yet.

The movie then follows a pattern of incomprehensibly terrible writing and plot points. Villain sends two assassinations on Bond, and then his second in command tells him "we can't kill Bond, or MI6 will know something's up". He says "I KNOW" angrily. He then sends two more assassination crews.

The villain and Bond's interactions are some of the most egregiously terrible stuff I've ever seen in the franchise. When Bond literally visits him, in his home, surrounded by dozens of henchmen, and nobody but Bond knows he's there, the villain just offers him a drink, right after Bond pretty much said he was interested in his mistress. This is AFTER trying to kill him several times, and right before sending more people to kill him.

If only the general plot and dialogue were absurdly terrible and nonsensical, maybe this wouldn't be so bad. But it's also some of the worst direction I've ever seen. Some scenes are soooooooo long, like the plane landing to indicate Bond has arrived takes 3 times longer than it should. The final battle is an extended 5 minute underwater fight where 25 goons in full suit (no visible faces) fight another 25 goons in full suit. It's a painfully long and pointless mess with realistic sounds, so all you hear is the sound of water. And to top it all, to make Bond recognisable, they put him in a big orange dive suit...

Direction, dialogue, logic, plot, speed, are all so absurdly bad that I can't believe this movie followed the brilliant Goldfinger. I watched all these movies with a friend, and at the end, all I could say to this one was "fu**, I don't even want to talk about this, what an absolute s**t". It crosses beyond incompetent and goes into outright infuriatingly bad.