Thunderball (1965)

Bond whispering at a funeral... How unlike him and mundane. But wait! The man wasn't dead and a big fight ensues! And off by jet-pack it is, straight to the beloved Aston Martin (and a beautiful woman of course). All in a few minutes Much, much better. Generally, there is a lot of assassinations and attempted such the first 30 minutes.

Director Terence Young takes a bit of effort trying to let us get to know SPECTRE, and succeeds in showing them as an extremely callous organization, highly structured with much loyalty demanded, and absolutely no slip-ups tolerated. Under penalty of death. The problem with it is that Largo seems a bit weak compared to the actions of the not-seen Blofeld. He does feed failures to sharks though, and that is a most wanted trait in a villain. Particularly when he would much rather use them to give Bond a chance to escape instead of just shooting him. 

Bernard Lee gets a bit more meat on the bone as M, with high-ranking politicians involved, showing a fierce loyalty towards Bond, when he's not there. Connery seems a bit bored this time around, and particularly his flirting is off. He even has to blackmail himself to the first round. His interaction with Adolfo Celi as Largo in a card-game (thankfully no more golf) is impeccable, though. 

Somehow the special effects seem poorer than previous instalments, and particularly the action-scenes seem to have been done at 1.25 of regular speed, making them seem a bit silly. Thunderball does well on mystique, tension and the spy-like sneaking about though. And Barry has a magnificent score to help along. Pay particular attention to the build-up to Volpe's death. Masterful suspense. 

The real treat of this instalment however, is the underwater scenes. Whether the huge underwater battle (epic for its time) or just Bond and girls swimming with turtles, they are astonishing.

So it doesn't have the same charm as the two that preceded it, but it's still a solid piece of work

7/10

Best car used: Aston Martin DB5

Most memorable drink served: Dom Perignon 55.

Henchmen: Fiona Volpe, a beautiful but somewhat easy to forget character that dies rather early. 

Villain: SPECTRE number 2, Maximilian Largo

Best one-liner. "I think he got the point"

Song: Tom Jones. The big voice from Wales with a big brass section to dramatic effect. One of the best. 

Bond-girl: Claudine Auger as Domino. Seems a bit of a continuation of Tilly Masterson from "Goldfinger". Not particularly memorable