Thunderball

1965 "Look up! Look down! Look out! Here comes the biggest Bond of all!"
6.9| 2h10m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 29 December 1965 Released
Producted By: EON Productions
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: https://www.mgm.com/movies/thunderball
Info

A criminal organization has obtained two nuclear bombs and are asking for a 100 million pound ransom in the form of diamonds in seven days or they will use the weapons. The secret service sends James Bond to the Bahamas to once again save the world.

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Director

Terence Young

Production Companies

EON Productions

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Thunderball Audience Reviews

Wordiezett So much average
AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,
Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Red-Barracuda Thunderball is the fourth in the 'James Bond' series and the final of those directed by Terence Young. It was actually the most successful Bond of its time, yet it seems to have a mixed reputation. When I watched it as a little kid, I used to think this too, finding it less engaging than the other Bond movies of its era, however, having seen it a couple of times in recent times I now find I to be among the best of the series. In this one a member of the nefarious espionage organisation SPECTRE, the criminal mastermind Emilio Largo, concocts a plan to steal nuclear warheads from NATO and to then threaten to detonate them unless a huge ransom is received. As per usual, the plot-line is merely a means to an end, simply a way of allowing us access to all of the usual Bond ingredients we know and love.Sean Connery is very much at the height of his powers here and gives another witty performance full of sarcasm and one-liners, while fully convincing as an action hero. His nemesis here Largo is played by Italian actor Aldolfo Celi who appeared in many notable movies and he is suitably memorable here as the eye-patch sporting evil genius who even has a pool of sharks at his villa where those who displease him are forced to take a swim. Blofeld himself gets in on the act too by disposing of a traitorous associate by eliminating him via a trap door to a fiery demise, only to be replaced with a smoking chair. There is even a Bond Girl villainess in the assassin Fiona Volpe played with some gusto by Luciana Paluzzi. A more traditional Bond Girl comes in the form of the utterly gorgeous Domino, played by the very sexy Claudine Auger. She is a bikini wearing babe in the same general mould as Honey Ryder from Dr. No (1962), which quite frankly can never be a bad thing.This could be thought of as the underwater Bond film. The beautiful stylish opening credit sequence plays on this with silhouettes of slinky ladies swimming to the terrific Tom Jones title song. The setting of the Bahamas is a chance for the series to return to the same general vicinity as that used in Dr. No and which had the added advantage of being a part of the world which was both associated with the real major Cold War incident the Cuban Missile Crisis, while at the same time being sun-kissed, exotic and a place for pure escapism, i.e. a perfect location for a glamourized spy film. A few people seem to find the copious amounts of underwater action as being excessive and a bit tedious but I actually really appreciated all of it. I thought that it gave the film a flavour all of its own, while the elaborate battle was expertly executed and really showcased the high production values. What took all of this stuff up to another level was the really rather excellent soundtrack from John Barry, the incidental music here is some of his best individual Bond scoring work and really accentuated the underwater feel I thought. If I had to add one bit of criticism it would probably have to be the speeded-up boat finale does seem a little ropey nowadays. But, overall I found revisiting this one to be another very pleasant experience and it goes down as yet another out-and-out classic Bond film from the 60's era. In 1983 Connery returned to the Bond role after a long absence in the film Never Say Never Again, which was a remake of Thunderball. It was a sadly very poor film indeed and showed that the magic of great cinema is not so easy to reproduce, but what it did indicate was just how much better Thunderball was by direct comparison.
Hitchcoc I stole my title from another reviewer. I braved a harsh winter night in downtown Minneapolis to see this movie. We were all Bond fans in those days. We had seen the previous three movies and were thrilled that a fourth was on its way. Unfortunately, after Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger, we wanted something that would top all of them. It doesn't work. There is something missing here, a kind of spark that even the great Sean Connery can't provide. This all takes place in underwater settings and I have found that this creates a weakness. Of course, there is a Bond girl and a serious villain, but that's where it all stops.
Coventry "Thunderball" was the fourth installment in the James Bond franchise, and as the hype and popularity rose, the available budgets exponentially increased as well, as a matter of course. The budget for this movie was more than the three previous ones accumulated (and then still it's very modest in comparison with nowadays action flicks), which explains the fact that "Thunderball" also marks more or less the point where the franchise became more focused on the hi-tech gadgetry and extravagant set-pieces. Heck, even 007 himself begins to behave shamelessly like a millionaire, as he takes vacations in luxurious spa resorts and tropical islands, and has fancy flying devices stored in the truck of his beautiful Aston Martin! But the work of a secret agent is never finished, and still whilst luring the voluptuous nurse into bed, Bond already spots a few sinister men who are clearly up to no good. They turn out to be henchmen of SPECTRE's number two – Emilio Largo – who's punctually preparing the heist of two nuclear warheads. Once in his possession and carefully hidden underneath the bottom of the ocean, Largo threatens to blow up both Miami and London in case the world doesn't pay up 100 million dollars' worth of uncut diamonds. The government hastily summons all double-0 agents to locate the warheads in less than 14 days, but naturally James Bond is the only one making any progress in his very own typically daring and flamboyant style. After having missed out on "Goldfinger", Terence Young reclaims his place in the director's chair and once more serves a delicious Bond-cocktail with all the ingredients that make the series recognizable: breathtaking women (Claudine Auger, Martine Beswick and – especially – the lethally ravishing Luciana Paluzzi), charismatic villains (Adolfo Celi doesn't even need his eye patch in order to look menacing), dreamy filming locations (Paris, Bahama's …), eccentric scenery and gimmicks (luxury yachts named "Flying Saucer", shark-infested swimming pools) and – as top of the bill – masterfully choreographed albeit slightly overlong underwater battle sequences. My sole complaint in general with regards to "Thunderball", in fact, is about the length. I realize all Bond movies last around 110-140 minutes, but in this case there should have been cuts within the first half hour. The preparations for the heist of the warheads is illustrated extendedly and in every tiniest detail, including the training and plastic surgery of the pilot assigned to hijack the Avro Vulcan Bomber, and it takes an incredibly long time before the audience properly registers what one-eyed Largo's evil plans actually are. Almost every plot description of "Thunderball" states something like: "SPECTRE stole two atomic bombs and holds the world at ransom", but it effectively takes more than half an hour before we reach this point.
Filipe Neto Directed by Terence Young, produced by Kevin McClory, Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli and with a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins, this is the fourth film in the franchise 007. In this film, the franchise reaches the maturity after the consecration with "Goldfinger". The participation of McClory seems strange but, in fact, it's the result of a legal conflict, prior to the production.In this film, the British secret agent is admitted to a nursing home when he finds out, by sheer luck, a conspiracy to rob a French jet with two nuclear bombs. Not having been able to prevent it, Bond is sent to the Bahamas in order to contact the sister of the late pilot of the missing plane and obtain more information. It turns out that the girl is also the lover of Emilio Largo, the responsible for the disappearance. Bond escapes all assassination attempts and find the missing plane, as well as the enemy's plans and his connection to the terrorist organization SPECTRE, the same that Bond had already been fighting since the previous films.In this film, Sean Connery got a perfect interpretation of his James Bond. Rude, a little hard with the opposite sex but always seductive, he marked for decades the idea of the public on how Bond should be. In addition to the idyllic scenery of the Caribbean, the film brings us some curious machines, continuing a tradition which was closely associated to the 007 imaginary. It is the case of the jet-bag used in the opening scenes, the armored-boat used by the villain in the final chase or the respiratory device used by Bond in some of the underwater scenes that made this movie famous. However, in my opinion, one of the reasons why this movie has reached excellence is the relevance of its central subject, a subject that, at that time, was very present in society: the danger of a nuclear attack. We must have in mind that the missile crisis in Cuba happened a few years before the film was released and the whole society, both in the US and in Europe, lived under the imminent danger of a missile war.James Bond and the characters M, Q and Monneypenny were embodied by the same actors from the previous films. To these artists joined Claudine Auger (in the role of bond-turned, Domino), Luciana Paluzzi (in the role of assassin Fiona Volpe) and Adolfo Celi (in the role of villain, Largo).