9.01.2010

CLASSIC JAMES BOND

I am going to be re-posting some classic James Bond film reviews that I wrote a while ago. While not the most original thing I have ever done, I feel that somewhere deep inside of you, you yearn for these reviews. Just sit down and believe you me when I tell you me that these things are good for you (me).

And with that, I give you Thunderball.

Thunderballz! I started watching the 4th installation of the James Bond series on Thanksgiving morning with high hopes.

Opening Sequence – The thunderball theme song is sung by the man hisselph – Tom Jones. While I am not too partial to men singing the 007 theme song, Mister Jones is quite fitting. His highs are exhilarating and his lows more so. Also – Tom Jones is somewhat of a Bond. While he doesn’t work for MI-6, he does get down with tons of voluptuous 60’s booty. I bet he got more tail than Sean Connery and Roger Moore combined. The visual stimuli is pretty nice. Cutouts in the shape of women’s bodies with multicolored fluids bubbling in the background is fun, if a bit ordinary.

Girls – Domino. Not plural and not the kind you play with your grammy. I find her to be one of the most appealing Bond girls. She’s a beautiful red-headed Parisian with a fitting accent. She’s also not shy. In one scene she states she will kill 007. And yet, in the end she saves his life.

Perils and Escapes – While at a health clinic Bond gets on a machine that is supposed to stretch his spine with slow undulating motions. Unbeknownst to him, some hooligan turns the machine to “eleven”. The stretcher goes into hyper-drive, pulling at ever-faster intervals. The viewer is somewhat torn by this sight. Is the machine lending an auto-erotic helping hand or is Bond making love to the metallic beast? Either way, the Marquis de Sade would be proud. Probably one of Bond’s most comical and innocuous predicaments. I highly recommend it.

Villains – While getting a taste of SPECTRE in the earlier 007 films, this is the first to show us the organization as a whole. The identity of #1 is still ambiguous. His visage hidden by some not-so-clever evil lair architecture. The cat is still there though, forever being stroked by that hand… which is probably pruney from all of the cat oil that has been soaked into it.

One mention about the term SPECTRE. Ian Fleming used the acronym a lot in his stories. One theory of mine is that Fleming read about the term in the Communist Manifesto. The first line of it reads, “There is a spectre haunting Europe – the spectre of communism.” I will leave the conclusions for you to make.

Vehicles and Gadgets – MMMmmm underwater gadgetry painted in 1960’s motifs. You can’t get much better. The Aston martin DB5 makes its’ appearance, albeit for a brief moment. And the weaponry it wields? A pair of spouts on the back that shoot… water. These jets of wah-wah (shouts to Helen Keller!) deftly keep a few henchmen at bay while Bond takes his leave. This is within the first ten minutes of the film. And where does the beautiful DB5 go after that? Somewhere not in the film. Bollocks.

Memorable Quotes – “Why not try some of my conch chowder?”

2 comments:

  1. I think that for the new James Bond movies they need to combine old names, for example ThunderPussy or Moonfinger.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Aston martin DB5 makes its’ appearance, albeit for a brief moment. And the weaponry it wields? richyevents

    ReplyDelete