While I've never seen a James Bond film yet that I hated, I have to admit that some are better than others. Some are faster moving, have better plot lines, more seductive female characters and yet the better ones are those that are more outlandish in plot. The five Sean Connery films made between 1962 and 1967, it seemed like they are either extremely good or just acceptable. "Thunderball" falls into the acceptable mode, the first one to go over two hours, and fails to completely impress in regards to its plot line. But you can enjoy it for all it has, grabbing you instantly with that energetic theme song sung by Tom Jones.Once again, Bond deals with an extremely wealthy madman, determined to bring the world to its knees by threatening to blow up a major city either in England or the United States, and not specifying which one. As most of this takes place either on top of the ocean or beneath it, there are a lot of boat chases in addition to swimming with sharks, a major plot point established in the first scene. The action is pretty much non-stop, the women scantily clad and the love scenes hot. Connery gets in a slew of amusing wisecracks, but overall, it's still formulaic and nothing remotely special. What I'd give, though, to be able to hit the high note on the last line of the opening theme song.

THUNDERBALL is an adventurous action thriller, the fourth in the James Bond series, in which the secret agent 007 gets a mission to find two NATO atomic bombs stolen by SPECTRE, which holds the world to ransom for £100 million in diamonds, in exchange for not destroying an unspecified major city in either England or the United States. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming.This is an exciting exotic adventure where our secret agent again seduces attractive beauties, while constantly keeping pace with dangerous enemies, and after all of that, he finds time to appropriate jokes. Mr. Young has made more space for secondary characters, unlike his previous films in the series. A fictional story has touched the boundaries of fiction and absurdity, however, despite this, there is no exaggeration. Skillfully designed plots fully correspond to rich dialogues.The scenery is outstanding, there are again some interesting devices and many beautiful and attractive young women.Sean Connery as James Bond was exposed to a physical strain as never before. His charm, once again coming to the fore, although he was again cold and uncomfortable to the beauties in this movie.Adolfo Celi as Emilio Largo is the main antagonist and SPECTRE operative Number Two. He is a kind of attempt to insert some kind of pirate character in the story. After Auric Goldfinger this is a bit ridiculous.Their support are Dominique "Domino" Derval (Claudine Auger) as a Largo's mistress and Bond's ace in the hole, a beautiful and dangerous SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi), who playing an interesting game with agent 007. There is an inconclusive CIA agent Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter), Bond's attractive assistant Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick) and standard M (Bernard Lee) with his secretary Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell).Well, an underwater battle is memorable.

Thunderball has be one of the greatest Bond films of all time. Sean Connery was firmly cemented in his role as 007 and played it to perfection. A number of elements need to be in place for an excellent Bond film. Besides a great actor it should contain a great plot, a good villain to pull of this plot, excellent supporting characters and good direction to ensure the film does not go astray. Thunderball contained all these elements and follows this formula after Goldfinger. Since a lot of this film is related to the sea and being under water it was quite enjoyable to watch some good action sequences under water. Despite being made in 1965 this film has aged very well and one can almost appreciate watching it today as one would have in the 1960s. Thunderball keeps you on the edge of your seat and time really went by fast in this iconic spy film.

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.