X
- 1965
- GP
- United Artists
- 2 h 10 m
- 1965
- GP
- United Artists
- 2 h 10 m
Summary James Bond heads to The Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by SPECTRE agent Emilio Largo in an international extortion scheme.
Directed By: Terence Young
- 1965
- GP
- United Artists
- 2 h 10 m
- 1965
- GP
- United Artists
- 2 h 10 m
Thunderball
64
6.9
Where to Watch
Summary James Bond heads to The Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by SPECTRE agent Emilio Largo in an international extortion scheme.
Directed By: Terence Young
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
64
56% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
44% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
64
56% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
44% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Though From Russia with Love remains the liveliest Bond opera to date, Thunderball is by all odds the most spectacular. Its script hasn't a morsel of genuine wit, but Bond fans, who are preconditioned to roll in the aisles when their hero merely asks a waiter to bring some beluga caviar and Dom Pérignon '55, will probably never notice.
Sleek and quite fun all the same, with SPECTRE holding the world to ransom after stealing a couple of nuclear bombs, Bond almost getting his in the villain's shark-infested swimming pool, and a cleverly choreographed underwater battle to provide the icing on the mix.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 90 User Ratings
6.9
62% Positive
56 Ratings
56 Ratings
34% Mixed
31 Ratings
31 Ratings
3% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 90 User Ratings
6.9
62% Positive
56 Ratings
56 Ratings
34% Mixed
31 Ratings
31 Ratings
3% Negative
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
James Bond is awesome!James Bond is awesome!James Bond is awesome!James Bond is awesome!James Bond is awesome!
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Fun absurdity is what describes Thunderball as a movie. The plot and climax is ridiculous, but still is fun to watch and enjoyable after all these years due to being the least sexist and racist of the Sean Connery Bond movies along with From Russia With Love.
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[Bond] also has a much better sense of humor than he has shown in his previous films. And this is the secret ingredient that makes Thunderball the best of the lot.
The underwater sequences, which are choreographed and directed with great skill, are Thunderball's standout feature... Thunderball is classic 007 -- not the best picture in the long-running series, to be sure, but a more-than-worthwhile diversion for the action-loving escapist in us all.
Not bad, but not quite top-grade Bond. A little too much under-water war-ballet.
Connery [is] cruising by this point and the movie doesn't quite match the swagger of Goldfinger, but still effortlessly plies the glory Bond years, concluding with a stunning underwater battle.
Slightly bloated Bond, with too much technology and a climactic slaughter that's a little too mindless to be much fun. Still, Adolfo Celi—with his “heat and cold, applied scientifically”—makes a most memorable villain.
Thunderball is the fourth installment of the James Bond franchise starring Sean Connery as the titular character. It's a fun movie, with the plot being that the insidious SPECTRE organization headed by Number One, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, steals two NATO atomic bombs and holds the world for ransom of £100 million in diamonds under its threat to destroy an unspecified metropolis in either the United Kingdom or the United States (later revealed to be Miami). Bond searches for the bombs in the Bahamas, where he encounters Emilio Largo, the card-playing, eye patch-wearing SPECTRE Number Two. Backed by CIA agent Felix Leiter and Largo's mistress, Domino Derval, Bond's search culminates in an underwater battle with Largo's henchmen. The underwater fight scenes are exciting but a little too lengthy. There are some good action scenes, and Bond uses some classic gadgets like a jetpack. Number One or Ernst Stavro Blofeld's face is never shown, and he strokes a white Persian cat which is a trope parodied in mainstream culture. He wears a Mao suit and kills subordinates with a control switch that drops them from their chairs at the desk to a pit of fire. Emilio Largo, or Number Two, kills subordinates in a similar fashion, by feeding them to sharks. These are classic Bond tropes I enjoyed seeing in the movie.
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Compared to the other Bonds I have seen, I have a much tougher time believing this one. Particularly in the final moment where he has virtually run out of air. His tiny tube's maximum capacity of 4 minutes would not allow him to continue fighting continuously for more than 10 minutes. But since it's Bond, everything makes sense. Overall, the plot was uncomplicated and not really enjoyable to try and follow as some are. Additionally, it violated a number of Bond formula conventions. This might be interpreted both ways. Although this Bond was fine, it wasn't really enjoyable.
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The fourth James Bond movie. While it is by no standard a bad movie in the franchise I find it a bit underwhelming especially after Golfinger raised the bar for James Bond movies. Maybe it is the curse of being the follow up movie to one of the best and most acclaimed entry in the franchise.
The story is enjoyable as SPECTRE sets up their biggest coup (Wont go into details as it pretty much spoils half of the movie). It is however also nothing special or original enough to raise my rating while I admit that it has its moments. I always return to comparing it with other James Bond movies and it lacks an interesting villain like Goldfinger, Scaramanga, Jaws or Blofeld (More screentime / main villain as he is in the movie). Later I learned that this was planned as episode of a TV series and expanded to a movie. This explained a lot. Other than the story we get some cool gadgets from Q and some solid action. For the actors there are no missteps. Sean Connery is good as always, Claudia Auger does a good performance and while I don't have Emilio Largo on my top villains list I think he did a good job. I think I finish my review here with my conclusion. It is an enjoyable James Bond movie but nothing in it will be remembered well or land on a top 10 list easily. Worth watching but fast forgotten. It was the curse of being in the middle of 2 better James Bond movies.
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Thunderball isn't necessarily a bad film but it is one that desperately needed a trip to the editing room. All of these underwater sequences were so overly long and boring. There were put in to do nothing but pad the runtime and they simply didn't need to be as long or as numerous as they had to be. It's just total filler to me and it kills the movie because it's an over 2-hour movie that could have easily been cut down another 20-30 minutes.
Now would this editing have saved the movie? Not really because the story is very similar to what we have already seen before and the villain is too generic but I would have at least increased my overall score a few points.
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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 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.
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Production Company
Eon Productions
Release Date Dec 22, 1965
Duration 2 h 10 m
Rating GP
Tagline FANTASTIC 'BOND' SALE [Reissue poster]
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Laurel Awards
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
