This remake of 'Thunderball' sees Sean Connery return to the role that made him famous twelve years after his previous Bond film. There are some changes in this edition to update it from the sixties to the eighties; most notably rather than seizing control of a Vulcan bomber SPECTRE gets an agent, Jack Petachi, to switch the practice warheads in two cruise missiles to live nuclear weapons which SPECTRE member Maximilian Largo takes control of then attempts to blackmail the world. As chance would have it Bond was being treated as the same clinic as Petachi; this is the clue he needs to investigate the apparently clean Largo on a trail that leads from The Bahamas to the South of France to North Africa.
This might be an 'unofficial' Bond film but it is still pretty good and apart from missing famous James Bond Theme and opening you could be excused for thinking this was part of the official series. Connery managed well in the roll despite being rather old for an action hero; he might not be as tough as in his earlier films but he still has a screen presence. The film's real weakness is that it compares poorly with Thunderball and in some ways seems more dated than original despite being made nearly twenty years later... the video game sequence suffers particularly in this regard. Other flaws include a sound track that is just not-Bond and a villain who seems too petty for a member of SPECTRE. All Bond films feature a variety of attractive women and this one is no exception; most notable are Barbara Carrera who plays psychotic SPECTRE agent Fatima Blush and Kim Basinger who plays Domino; Petachi's sister and Largo's lover; the former is memorably for her over the top performance as she prepares to dispatch Bond but the latter is a fairly forgettable character.
Over all I'd say this is a decent film that certainly shouldn't be avoided by Bond purists; just don't expect anything as good as Thundball.
This might be an 'unofficial' Bond film but it is still pretty good and apart from missing famous James Bond Theme and opening you could be excused for thinking this was part of the official series. Connery managed well in the roll despite being rather old for an action hero; he might not be as tough as in his earlier films but he still has a screen presence. The film's real weakness is that it compares poorly with Thunderball and in some ways seems more dated than original despite being made nearly twenty years later... the video game sequence suffers particularly in this regard. Other flaws include a sound track that is just not-Bond and a villain who seems too petty for a member of SPECTRE. All Bond films feature a variety of attractive women and this one is no exception; most notable are Barbara Carrera who plays psychotic SPECTRE agent Fatima Blush and Kim Basinger who plays Domino; Petachi's sister and Largo's lover; the former is memorably for her over the top performance as she prepares to dispatch Bond but the latter is a fairly forgettable character.
Over all I'd say this is a decent film that certainly shouldn't be avoided by Bond purists; just don't expect anything as good as Thundball.