In preparation for November’s “Skyfall”, I’ll be counting down all the Bond movies from my least favorite to favorite. Twenty-two movies in all, so let’s get going! Warning: Spoilers for countdown movie below.

Number on Countdown: 17

Title: Thunderball

Year: 1965

Synopsis:

Bond is chillin’ at the funeral of Colonel Jacques Bouvar, a SPECTRE agent, who killed a couple of his colleagues. Bond follows Mrs. Bouvar back to her place, and upon greeting her, punches her in the face. Turns out it’s not Mrs. Bouvar, but Jacques himself. After a fight and killing Bouvar, Bond escapes with the use of a super-awesome jetpack, which “no well dressed man should be without.”

In Paris, a well-dressed man wearing an eye-patch enters into some building, and after some pleasantries, enters through a secret doorway, leading to a massive room, where some men sit around. The eye-patch man, revealed soon to be SPECTRE Number 2, takes his seat. At the start of the meeting, the cat-petting über-boss from From Russia With Love, tells all that Number 6, Jacques Bouvar, has been killed by an unknown assassin and this services will be missed. Number 2 then sheds some light on the NATO project, the biggest plan SPECTRE has ever attempted, which is to hijack some nuclear weapons and hold the world hostage. Number 2 has sent SPECTRE agent Count Lippe to the south of England (at a clinic near a NATO base) where he’s making the final preparations.

Turns out, Bond is at the same clinic, getting some R & R. After seeing a mysterious symbol of a tattoo on Count Lippe’s arm, it urges Bond to do some investigating of Lippe’s room. He doesn’t see him there, but Lippe’s bandaged-up-face neighbor sees Bond and is like “hmm..” Bond asks the physiotherapist who the bandaged man is, but reveals she doesn’t know much about him. She then ties Bond to some back-traction machine and leaves the room. Lippe turns the back-traction machine on full blast, leaving Bond trapped. And for dead. Luckily, the physiotherapist returns to turn off the machine and save Bond. Then he plays an über-sleaze and has her sleep with him so he won’t tell her boss.

In a nearby hotel, NATO pilot François Derval is making out with this super foxy lady when he has to get going. He opens the door, shocked to see another, well, him, and another him that shoots him in the face with toxic gas. Turns out the other him is a dude named Angelo who’s spent two years of his life turning himself into Derval with voice lessons, tape viewings, and plastic surgery. The foxy lady is actually SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe, and makes sure Angelo replaces Derval for his upcoming flight. They wrap the dead Derval in bandages and put him back at the clinic. Bond finds the dead Derval as the fake one hijacks the airplane carrying two nukes. Angelo flies the plane straight to a SPECTRE ship waiting offshore. He sets the plane down underwater. SPECTRE sends down divers obtain the nukes. Oh, and kill Angelo.

Bond is called to the London office, as is every 00 agent. Number 1 has sent a tape to the powers that be that roughly states “give us 100 million pounds upon this date or we’ll use these nukes to blow up a major city in England or the U.S.” They agree to pay the baddies if they can’t somehow stop them within the allotted time. Bond, upon learning that the dead Derval’s sister is in Nassau, suggests he should go and check her out.

Bond immediately finds her, Dominique “Domino” Derval, and makes contact. Over some conch chowder, Bond learns she has a guardian, and one with a big-ass yacht. Later that night, Bond plays the eye-patch man, named Emelio Largo, in baccarat and kicks his ass. Bond chats with Domino again and learns she’s his mistress. Largo leaves with Domino, but not before inviting Bond to have lunch at his house.

Later, after thwarting some thug in his room, Bond meets up with trusty ally Felix Leiter of the CIA. Bond sends the thug back to Largo, who just feeds him to his sharks. Bond then visits a hideout where Q gives him all his nifty gadgets. With only 55 hours until the ransom is due, Bond investigates the Emelio’s ship, the Disco Volante. After nearly dying, Bond gets away with some revealing photographs. Later, Bond and Felix develop the photos and go about finding the lost NATO airplane, but have no luck in finding it.

Later, Bond goes to Largo’s place for some lunch. After showing off his dangerous, ravenous sharks, Largo suggest that Domino take Bond to Junkanoo, the local Mardi Gras. A little later, Bond returns to his room to find Volpe there, and after sexual negotiations, she reveals herself to be a baddie. On his way to “an interesting conversation”, Bond escapes Volpe and her goons, running through the Mardi Gras parade, eventually landing at the Kiss Kiss Club. Volpe dances with Bond, trying to get him to surrender, but when Bond sees an assassin in the distance about to shoot his face off, he spins so that Volpe catches the bullet instead.

With 14 hours, 50 minutes until the zero hour, Bond and Felix search for the plane, finally finding it under water. Although the plane is there, the bombs are not. Bond finds Domino and chats with her, finally telling her her brother is dead due to the orders of Largo.Upon learning this, she agrees to help. Bond gives her his Gieger Counter and tells her to signal him or Felix when the bombs are aboard the Disco Volante.

Bond camps out where Largo and his cronies will get ready to dive underwater to deliver the bombs. When no one’s looking, he knocks out a sucker and changes into his scuba gear. The bad guys successfully board the bombs aboard Largo’s yacht. On board, Domino is caught with the Gieger Counter. This doesn’t sit well with Largo, who ties her up and wants information about Bond. Just before he can cause her “great pain”, he is notified the bombs are being activated. Bond somehow learns that Largo wants to destroy Miami Beach and tells Felix to get his men into action.

Felix sends in some United States Coast Guard dudes to parachute down into the area. They are soon met by Largo’s henchmen and a harpoon underwater shoot-out begins. Bond joins the battle and helps out the Coast Guard, and in the end, the bad henchmen surrender. Bond catches Largo trying to get away and gives chase. Largo makes it back to the Disco Volante, but Bond gets on as well. With Coast Guard boats chasing after him, Largo takes off like a mofo. With one bomb on board, he could still make a big, devastating explosion. Bond enters the cabin and exchanges fists with Largo and his bruisers. At the end of the fight, Bond is cornered and Largo’s got his gun pointed at him, but Largo is shot in the back by Domino before he can do anything. Bond and Domino jump off the boat just before it crash lands into some rocks and blows up into a billion pieces. They then hitch a ride via plane back to safety.

Things I like:

I can’t help but making a face any time I hear the world Thunderball, but don’t worry, it’s not all bad.

Some of the best scenes in the film are between Bond and Largo. For example, when Bond plays baccarat against Largo at the casino, he says “So, it’s my specter against yours,” which, of course, peaks Largo’s interest. From the first they are secretly and subtly at each others throats, and their subtext-filled dialogue is quite entertaining throughout the entire movie. This comes up again when Bond visits Largo’s home for some lunch (which I’ll describe more about later).

Once again, the Bond girls are absolutely stunning. This time, we get Dominique “Domino” Duval and Fiona Vulpe. Domino might just run-of-the-mill eye candy, but Fiona plays a great sinister girl. After sleeping with her, she reveals herself to be evil. Bond is like “whaa?” and she says ” But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, the one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue, but not this one!” Evil to the end, she stands out as one of the coolest gals of the Connery era.

Things I didn’t like:

Veteran Bond producer Michael G. Wilson said this when talking about the super-dud Die Another Day (number 20 on this countdown) “We keep trying to make another From Russia with Love, but end up making another Thunderball”. I can’t agree more with him that Thunderball is a stinker, and I’ll tell ya why.

For how intense the plot of Thunderball is, it is surprisingly dull. The ENTIRE movie has a time clock to destruction and I STILL can’t get excited about it. I think one reason for this is that there are so many damn, slow scuba scenes. It’s interesting to watch Bond sneak around a base, gun in hand, looking about. It’s different to watch him floating amidst a host of bubbles. In fact, I think that the numerous underwater sequences hurt Thunderball immensely, which leads me to the end of the film.

Thunderball‘s climax begins with a rousing scene of dudes parachuting down into the ocean, which is pretty damn awesome. Once the fight gets underwater, though, the excitement level drops from “awesome” to “this is boring”. I don’t know about you, but when I was younger, my friends and I would “fight” whilst underwater, doing slow-motion kicks and spins like we were from The Matrix. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this while watching the super-slow movements of the fighting divers in Thunderball. “Watch out for that guy going to punch you at like 40% his normal speed!” It’s so exciting! Like, goodness gracious. It wouldn’t be so bad perhaps if the scene wasn’t like eight gorram minutes of this. Yes, like eight minutes of guys fighting in faux-slow-motion underwater.

And even when Bond gets aboard the Disco Volante, the fight isn’t much better. Nearly EVERYTHING is sped up to make it look like it’s going faster and it just sucks. The last twenty minutes, man, total snoozer.

The Song:

Upon first hearing Tom Jones’ “Thunderball”, I have to admit I didn’t think too much of it. The brassy opening always seemed a bit screechy to me, but the track is soon saved by Jones’ smooth vocals, not to mention the vocal melody can get stuck in your head for days. And let’s not for get the chorus. “So he strikes!” DANANANANA! “like…Thundaaaaballlll…” Good stuff.

As with many Bond movies, there were, this time, TWO alternate songs that could have been used for the theme song. The first was “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”, composed by Bond composer John Barry. Recorded by Shirley Bassey and then later Dionne Warwick, the movie studio didn’t dig it for whatever reason. Here’s Dionne Warwick’s version:

Additionally, Johnny Cash submitted a song to be the opening theme. What we get is a bizarre Western-type song that doesn’t fit the Bond mold in the slightest. To his defense, this was only the fourth movie, so the Bond “sound” hadn’t really been nailed yet, but seriously, what the hell? Give it a listen if interested.

Favorite Scene:

My favorite scene of the film might just have to be when Bond visits Largo at his house for some lunch. I already mentioned their repartee during the film entertaining, but it reaches its peak here. Bond shows off his shooting skills, Largo shows off his sharks and his henchman. Each man is sizing up the other, knowing full well that, in the end, they’ll have to confront each other. And that only one will survive.

Favorite Line:

Q can never catch a break when trying to tell 007 about all his new gadgets. Exceptionally annoyed by Bond’s antics this time, he admonishes “try to be a little less than your usual frivolous self, 007.” Hilarious.

Extra Tidbit:

The actual ideas for Thunderball were thought up by Fleming and Kevin McClory as a movie script. When their movie idea fizzled, Fleming wrote the novel “Thunderball”, using a huge percentage of the material. McClory sued and got some rights. Enough, in fact, to make his own version of Thunderball, which explains why 1983’s Never Say Never Again exists. Sean Connery returned as Bond in this unofficial Bond movie, which I guess means he’s been in Thunderball twice. (What?) And as it turns out, McClory tried to make Thunderball AGAIN in the late 90s, this time under the title Warhead 2000. Come on, man.

Number 16 in the countdown can be found here!