Thunderball | James Bond Film | Hollywood Movie Reviews

The poster of the movie Thunderball (which is fourth in the James Bond series) says, “Look Up! Look Down! Look Out! Here comes the biggest Bond of all”.

Thunderball – is one of the lengthy Bond films (it never loses the grip though, due to length). The film has a huge action quotient. Better known for its underwater scenes, the movie was and is loved by a large amount of James Bond movie lovers.

Sean Connery continues portraying James Bond – the MI6 spy – known as 007. Felix Leiter – the CIA spy is having probably the longest role in this film.

The pre-title sequence of the movie starts with the funeral of Colonel Jacques Bouvar – a SPECTRE operative (number 6). In order to keep and eye on the activities of the opponents, and to check the truthfulness of this news, James Bond keeps an eye on the same. When the widow of Late Col. Jacques Bouver opens the door of the car by herself, Bond got suspicious about her. He then confronts her at her home and reveal that he know that he is Colonel Jacques himself, who planner his fake death. Eventually Bond kills him and runs away using a Jet-Pack. There are several things you cannot miss notice. For example, the Aston Martin of James Bond, is marked with dirt when he was escaping.

Bond was sent to a clinic so in order to improve his health. There he see a patient whose face was covered by bandage. We gotta know that a French NATO pilot was killed by SPECTRE operatives and a person was done plastic surgery to replace him. The patient was no one else but the killed NATO Pilot. However someone oversee Bond discovered the true face of the patient which resulted into an attack on Bond, which he survives (of course).

Angelo (SPECTRE operative) takes Derval (NATO pilot – now dead)’s place on the flight, which was loaded with two Atomic Bombs. Naturally his plan is to sabotage the plane. By getting rid of other crew members on the flight, he than successfully accomplishes his mission. Not needed to say that he bring the plane to the place where SPECTRE top level officials are waiting for, and gets the plane drowns in the sea. The SPECTRE team grabs the atomic bombs and transfer them to their ship and finally conceal the appearance of the plane. This was done so neatly that there are no traces remain for the same. Also the SPECTRE ship had under water gates to bring those missiles in, so no one got to know it.

This raised emergency for the NATO nations and all the 00 agents are called for a meeting. Bond was followed by a fellow, which was eventually killed by a SPECTRE agent, resulting into saving on Bond. SPECTRE demands a very high price (£100 million ) in uncut – white diamonds! Threatening to destroy a major city of either US or UK if their demands are not met. During the meeting when the photograph of Darvil was seen by Bond, he recognizes the person. He also got to know that the girl in photograph – Domino – is in Nassau, so he asked M to send him there. Eventually he found that Domino is Emilio Largo (SPECTRE #2)’s mistress.

How Bond develops relations with Domino, how he plays his card to get the atomic bombs back is the rest of the story. During the course of events, of course, so much damage (in terms of wealth and lives both) is done at various sides. The thriller is capable to keep you glued with it, despite of its length. If to say, Sean Connery’s performance is really good. The rest of the performances are quite effective as well. The stunts are the height of the movie, and so do the screenplay. The underwater scenes are also filmed clearly.

Interesting Facts:

• Special effects supervisor John Stears went on to win an Academy Award for his work in this Film.
• Broccoli’s original choice for the role of Domino Derval was Julie Christie.
• Guy Hamilton was invited to direct but ultimately Terence Young directed it (he directed Dr. No previously).
• Most of the underwater scenes had to be done at lower tides due to the sharks in the Bahamian sea.
• Connery’s life was in danger in the sequence with the sharks in Largo’s pool, he was just a few seconds away from the Shark’s attack.
• The climactic underwater battle was shot at Clifton Pier and was choreographed by Ricou Browning.
• he sky hook, used to rescue Bond at the end of the film, was a rescue system used by the United States military at the time.

A not to miss film for James Bond film lovers.