Subscribe

New reviews, interviews, and features via RSS or Email.

Related Reviews

• From Russia With Love (1963)
• Dr. No (1962)
• Casino Royale (2006)
• Die Another Day (2002)
• Thunderball (1965)
• Live and Let Die (1973)
• For Your Eyes Only (1981)
• Quantum of Solace (2008)
• Moonraker (1979)
• The World Is Not Enough (1999)
• The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Sean Connery

• First Knight (1995)
• The Red Tent (1971)
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
• A Bridge Too Far (1977)
• The Hunt for Red October (1990)
• Time Bandits (1981)
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
• The Name of the Rose (1986)

Max von Sydow

• Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) (2007)
• Rush Hour 3 (2007)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Three Days of the Condor (1975)
• The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) (1958)
• Shutter Island (2010)
• Flash Gordon (1980)
• The Magician (1958)
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011)
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Kim Basinger

• The Sentinel (2006)
• Cellular (2004)
• The Door in the Floor (2004)
• 8 Mile (2002)
• Batman (1989)
• L.A. Confidential (1997)

Michael D. Moore

• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
• The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

Ricou Browning

• Caddyshack (1980)

This Film On

Never Say Never Again

(1983)

134 min. Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution. Directors: Irvin Kershner, Michael D. Moore, Ricou Browning. Cast: Sean Connery, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Max von Sydow, Barbara Carrera, Kim Basinger.

When 53-year-old Sean Connery agreed to return to the role of James Bond (a role he had abandoned, seemingly for good, twelve years earlier) in Never Say Never Again, the lead was that the original James Bond was back, but many also harped on his age, something which the film itself explicitly acknowledges. Ironically, Roger Moore, playing Bond in neighboring theaters in 1983's Octopussy, is three years older than Connery, and Moore hung on to his tux for two more years, bowing out after 1985's A View to a Kill. Despite the movie's playful acknowledgement that Bond had substantial mileage, Connery proved plenty fit for one more outing. Made outside of "Cubby" Broccoli's EON production stable, Never Say Never Again turned out to be a likeable but somewhat mediocre adventure handsomely mounted in the traditional Bond style but still lacking a few elements (most notably Monty Norman's Bond theme).

It's well documented how Never Say Never Again (a winking title suggested by Connery's wife) is a remake of Thunderball made possible by a sprawling lawsuit over the rights to the story co-written by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and Bond creator Ian Fleming. So Connery is, in a way, retracing the steps of a Bond movie he's already made, in which Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Max von Sydow) and SPECTRE (the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) oversee a plot to hold two W80 warheads over the governments of the world and extort billions of dollars from them. Meanwhile, the beautiful Domino Petachi (Kim Basinger) seeks revenge against SPECTRE's man in the field, Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), when she discovers he's responsible for the death of her brother, Air Force pilot Jack Petachi (Gavan O'Herlihy).

While the principal plot is fairly generic, uncredited writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais (rewriting credited screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr.) and director Irvin Kershner add some flair around the edges. Take the opening passages, in which superspy Bond—ordered by "M" (Edward Fox) to eliminate "free radicals" after failing an MI6 test—checks into a health spa, where he finds himself in a knock-down, drag-out fight. Bond also must contend with a fearsome and funny femme fatale in Fatima Blush, played winningly by Barbara Carrera. Like the women, the locations are typically easy on the eyes: much of the film takes place in the Bahamas. And though the film frequently bogs down (and fatally so in the underwater climax), there is some solid action—in particular a fantastic motorcycle chase, expertly staged by Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back).

The inspiration of '80s fads dates the picture: besides the title song sung by Lani Hall with Herb Alpert trumpet solo (it's the exception and not the rule, after all, when a Bond title song isn't dated) and a terriblr score by Michel Legarnd, the plot nods to a pop culture dominated by Jane Fonda workouts and video-game arcades (one suspense sequence pits Bond against Largo in a wired-to-kill game of "Domination"). Instead of Desmond Llewelyn as "Q," Never Say Never Again offers Alec McCowen as Algernon. In one of the film's most drily funny scenes, Algernon tells Bond, "Good to see you, Mr. Bond. Things have been awfully dull around here. Bureaucrats running the old place, everything done by the book...Now you're on this, I hope we're going to have some gratuitous sex and violence." Bond's CIA buddy Felix Leiter turns up—as an African-American, for the first time—in the person of Bernie Casey, and a young Rowan Atkinson provides passing comic relief as the suggestively named Nigel Small-Fawcett, a nebbishy diplomat from the British Consulate.

Sponsored Links