Never Say Never Again

Connery gets the band back together after a dozen years absence

As James Bond (Sean Connery) returns to field action with MI6, SPECTRE steals two warheads and 007 traces them to wealthy SPECTRE agent Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), but he has to deal with femme fatale Fatima (Barbara Carrera) to accomplish his mission as he globetrots from the London area to the Bahamas to the French Riviera to North Africa to an underground facility on the Ethiopian coast. Kim Basinger plays Largos girlfriend while Bernie Casey is a highlight as Agent Leiter.

Despite the return of Connery, "Never Say Never Again" (1983) is an unofficial James Bond film in that it wasnt produced by Eon. As such, the recognizable Bond theme is miss...

What were they thinking? This stood for a while as the worst of the 007 series, although it's been outdone since then. It's just too boring to be as Hollywood depressing as it tries to be. Plot? You'll lose interest in the attempt to show a plot. It's a grand scheme to threaten the world, and Bond is there to save the day. There's nothing wrong with Connery. It's the script. It's the direction. It's the monotony. It's the totally predictable Hollywood ideology. It's a more "Hollywood" rendering of Thunderball. Here, we have it made for women. This is a chick flick 007 movie, with the heroine being the pale "plain Jane" that all women identify with. There is nothing memorable about this movie. You'll see that for yourself, if you watch it. What were they thinking?

Apparently Sean Connery was paid Elizabeth Taylor money to return as "007" but I doubt he was overly proud of the end product. This is a pretty straightforward rehash of "Thunderball" (1965) only it's Klaus Maria Brandauer who takes one the role of the S.P.E.C.T.R.E agent "Largo". He masterminds a plan to steal two nuclear missiles from the RAF then hold the world to ransom. The old "00" programme had been disbanded, but "M" (Edward Fox) realises the danger so he puts his best man on the job. His investigations introduce him to "Domino" (Kim Basinger) and soon he is slumming it in the Bahamas trying to track down the bombs, get the gal and maybe even avenge himself on his arch nemesis "Blofeld" (Max von Sydow). Braundauer was usually quite ...