James Bond is the quintessential male wish fulfillment fantasy: a stylish, unflappable Ubermensch who travels around the world shooting bad guys, bedding hot women, driving cool cars and playing with hi-tech gadgets. A guilty pleasure, but a meticulously planned one.
The main reason of Bond's initial success was creator Ian Fleming's talent, with his vivid prose and gift as a storyteller; still, what catapulted the character into super-stardom was the casting of Sean Connery in Dr. No. Once established the template, these movies started to live and die by the strength of the following ingredients: a charismatic 007, a memorable villain, captivating Bond girls, cool set pieces.
Thunderball features a still excellent Connery in the main role; a cunning villain in Adolfo Celi's eye-patched, beak-nosed Emilio Largo, who owns a swimming pool with sharks and steals an atomic bomb for SPECTRE; two of the most beautiful women in the series, brunette Claudine Auger and redhead Luciana Paluzzi; an underwater battle which has aged surprisingly well.
Later remade with the "unofficial" (as in "not part of the canonic movie series by Eon Productions") Never Say Never Again, notable for a suitably odious Klaus Maria Brandauer as Largo and a borderline-geriatric 007: the age gap between Connery and Bond girl Kim Basinger was over twenty years.
7/10
The main reason of Bond's initial success was creator Ian Fleming's talent, with his vivid prose and gift as a storyteller; still, what catapulted the character into super-stardom was the casting of Sean Connery in Dr. No. Once established the template, these movies started to live and die by the strength of the following ingredients: a charismatic 007, a memorable villain, captivating Bond girls, cool set pieces.
Thunderball features a still excellent Connery in the main role; a cunning villain in Adolfo Celi's eye-patched, beak-nosed Emilio Largo, who owns a swimming pool with sharks and steals an atomic bomb for SPECTRE; two of the most beautiful women in the series, brunette Claudine Auger and redhead Luciana Paluzzi; an underwater battle which has aged surprisingly well.
Later remade with the "unofficial" (as in "not part of the canonic movie series by Eon Productions") Never Say Never Again, notable for a suitably odious Klaus Maria Brandauer as Largo and a borderline-geriatric 007: the age gap between Connery and Bond girl Kim Basinger was over twenty years.
7/10