Bond...Blu-Ray Bond

Connery is back, better and more buff than ever, as super agent James Bond 007, this time seeing him on a mission in the Bahamas to prevent a nuclear catastrophe from happening. The cinematography is beautiful, as the Bond Girl Claudine Auger, who looks smoking hot in her bikini.

For the acting, Connery is always there to take the spotlight. He zigs and zags his way around friends and foe in order to succeed. He is still the charming, witty, and deadly secret agent we have come to know him for. The villain is also good here, because not only he has one of the most diabolical plans ever, he also looks diabolical (an eye patch).

The action here is non-stop, especially the underwater scenes. Some call these scenes overlong, thus causing the length of the film to be 2 hours and 10 minutes, quite long, but to me, it's just breathless and pulse-pounding. Also, the beginning of the film will want you begging for more Connery. Most of the action sequences rely on the team's special effects, but it's no problem, since the special effects are damn good for a 1965 movie, even by today's standard. Which is why it deserved to win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

Crew also reigns here. Producers Brocolli and Saltzman return once again, as well as Terence Young, director of the first two Bond films. This was his final James Bond film before he went on to direct Audrey Hepburn in her Oscar-nominated performance in the 1967 thriller Wait After Dark. It shows that you have a class filmmaker at the helm. John Barry gives us a beautiful and fast-paced score that mounts up the tension every time.
it was good in DVD and even better in Blu-ray, and thats saying something given the age of the movie.

Thunderball Ultimate Edition DVD

At the age of ten "Thuunderball" was the first James Bond movie I saw in a theatre, and it made a big impression on me. Over the years I have become fascinated with the effort that went into the underwater battle, from Lamar Boren's self-contained 70mm Panavision Camera, to the sharks set up by Ricou Browning and his team of divers. Since I saw this film way before you could buy a movie to take home in the form of VHS and later DVD, I must have seen it in the theatre at least 50 times, not including the times it was shown as a double feature with "You Only Live Twice". This is why the past versions for home viewing have been so disappointing, either from poor rendition of the water clarity, to the cut and paste mistakes in the soundtrack. The Ultimate Edition seems to have finally started from scratch and created the best version outside a movie theatre of this lavish production. I went straight to the underwater fight and was amazed to see actual definition in the grains of sand on the bottom (along with the dead frogmen) and visions of fights going on way off in the distant background. This was something that has not been seen in any previous versions (even the large laser disc was not this clear) and like a kid I must have tracked back about ten times just to watch the scene from beginning to end. My only complaint now is that the powers that be have also tinkered with the soundtrack and added many sounds that were not present in any version. The aquapara spearguns have a whole new sound, and the underwater sled (still an impresive creation from Jordan Klein) seems to have picked up a few extra gears for transporting atomic weapons. I guess the designers of this edition felt that there were too many sounds missing from the previous versions and decided to head back to the underwater foley room. Maybe this leaves room for the Final Ultimate Edition in HD or Blue Ray Disc to come out later this year. The newly exposed extra features were also delightful, especially Ken Adam's Home Movies of the location scouting that went on with all the production people and ends with a shot of he and his family on this fabulous sail boat reminding people that in life there is always hard work, but you still have to find the 'fun' things to do. The Boat Show Battle Reel was also surprising to see, since it contains an abreviated version of the underwater battle shot in reverse direction. All in all, this 2 disc edition was worth the price of purchase, since it provided a way to sample the 'new' versions of your favorite Bonds without having the buy the Box Set which seems to be comprised of two mediocre movies for every classic.

A Masterful Timepiece Making Connery The Bond of Choice

Back in 1965, we had many wonderful things going for us as a country, and cinema was one of them. Thunderball was a considerably exciting film based upon actual event within the time-frame only years after President Kennedy had his Showdown with Russia on the open seas during the Cuban missile crisis.
Sean Connery was into making his fourth James Bond 007 film and Hollywood was loving every new Ian Fleming novel set to film.

The underwater scenes are amazing even to this day. Bond 007 (Sean Connery) was much more cool and sexy than in later films, and women all seemed to love him in this starring role.

The Thunderball theme was of course sung by the great singer, Tom Jones.

The cinematography was superb above and below the water.

I'll give this a 4/5 for its attempt to follow several other films that made it quite better than Thunderball at the Box Office, yet failed to capture the true essence of immediate nuclear threat.

IF YOU LIKE MY REVIEWS, PLEASE DON'T HESITATE TO LET ME KNOW BY VOTING. THANKS!

A masterful timepiece making Connery The Bond of Choice

Back in 1965, we had many things going for us a country, and cinema was one of them. Thunderball was a considerably exciting film based upon the time-frame only years after the Cuban missile crisis. Sean Connery was into making his fourth film and Hollywood was loving the Ian Fleming novels set to film.

The underwater scenes are amazing even to this day. Bond 007 (Sean Connery) was much more cool and sexy than in later films, and women all seemed to love him in this starring role.

The Thunderball theme was of course sung by Tom Jones.

The cinematography was superb above and below the water.

I'll give this a 4/5 for its attempt to follow several other films that made it quite better than Thunderball at the Box Office, yet failed to capture the true essence of immediate nuclear threat.

IF YOU LIKE MY REVIEWS, PLEASE DON'T HESITATE TO LET ME KNOW BY VOTING. THANKS!

Thunderball

Great James Bond movie of the Sean connery era. Definitely one of the best James Bond movies ever. I loved and still love the storyline and the acting. I wish i could have found it sooner. As for dislikes, what is there to dislike about an early James Bond film, it's the newer ones that are starting to get on my nerves. Anyway, i decided to pick up a new copy at last because the copy I had was starting to fall apart, not to mention the beginning was taped terribly. So i am glad to have a DVD copy of Thiunderball now.