The James Bond Rewatch: Current Movie - SPECTRE

[Doc755]

We’re not covering the non-canon Never Say Never Again in this rewatch however if one were so inclined to include it, it falls here between Octopussy and A View to a Kill. I rewatched it last night so just a few thoughts. It’s not as good as I remember. Maybe that had to do with how I watch films now with a more critical eye or just because we’re steeped in this official rewatch but I didn’t enjoy it as much as some others recently.

Resulting from the legal battle over the rights to the plot of the Thunderball novel, Kevin McClory was granted permission to do a remake of that film. It’s why SPECTRE disappears in the Moore era (and a “Blofeld” was summarily dispatched in For Your Eyes Only’s teaser). And while Thunderball has a great plot, it was a great plot in 1965 and variations of it have been done both in the Bond official franchise and without. Maybe that’s why the plot almost seems secondary in this remake. They tend to focus more on the characters with varying degrees of success. To paraphrase an honest trailer, the villains seem almost lifted from another campier film. Both Klaus Maria Brandauer and Barbara Carrera seem to be enjoying themselves immensely. They play Largo and Fatima with sadistic glee and a touch (perhaps sometimes more) of insanity. It’s different for a Bond film at this point in the franchise.

And overall maybe that’s why it didn’t work for me. It just does not feel like a Bond film. It has the same milestones. M, Q, Moneypenny and Leiter are all there. But it seems a pale imitation. I can sit back and enjoy 1967’s Casino Royale because it’s a parody and clearly not meant to be taken seriously. But this film wants you to. And had McClory gotten his way, he would have remade this again in the 1990s . . . with Timothy Dalton.

Never Say Never Again is definitely worth checking out for the Bond completist. If for nothing else, seeing Sean Connery back in the role and actually enjoying himself is worth it. Although he’s actually younger than Moore, the film does try something different by leaning into an aging Bond. Kim Basinger makes a fine Bond girl but the romance feels undeveloped so I wish she had been given a better chance to shine in an official film. In the Battle of the Bonds of 1983, Octopussy comes out on top.

Last edited by Doc755 - on 14 January 2020