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This is also my feelings as well about the film, it also doesn't help that the scores are repetitive, and kinda messed upon, especially in the Junkanoo scenes.
Many dissed Never Say Never Again, but at least that one had a better pacing and more action, and I think better acting too, I mean the characters in NSNA were more reactive than the characters in TB where they're stiff except Fiona.
Not sure what in Connery's performance you find lacking. He shows some wonderful delivery of the lines, seems to be confident and cool when he needs to be. We see Bond bleed from a wound. Watch the Domino Bond scene on the beach. I notice now how Bond's hand trembles when giving her the watch and dog tags. Wonderful and very subtle way to show emotion. Also Bond puts on the sunglasses when delivering the bad news, almost like he's trying to mask his feelings. I love the subtle things that Connery does with that scene.
My controversial Bond opinion is that if you presented me with NSNA and TB, I'd always rather watch NSNA. Connery has a lot more life to him in that film, and while many of the creative decisions are strange (why is Rowan Atkinson in this movie?) they're not always boring and it's less of a slog to get through.
I'm also a big fan of Fatima Blush. Such a bizarre, but fun character.
Totally agree. I always read a lot of positive sentiment about TB on these boards, and then decide to re-watch it with an open mind and heart, and still just can't get on board with it.
With Spectre Lucia not get enough screentime. Two casting mistakes, one of them turn out les disapointed then expect but stil does in how chacter is set in both movies and other one whas partly inproved in NTTD.
It's one of Connery's best performances, it seems like the dislike of it could be coming from a general dislike of TB. His sparring with Largo throughout over Domino is top notch, his charm is on point, tough as always, physically on point. The confrontations with Fiona and Domino are among the best such in the series.
TB has some of the most beautiful locations, something NSNA fails to do with the Bahamas. They could've just faked it in that film and it wouldn't have made a difference. There's also a sense in TB that there's really something at stake, that the threat is coming down, something a number of other Bond films just don't convey.
The scene where Bond puts on the glasses and tells Domino about the death of her brother is a highlight, but it's not necessarily all that much to do with Connery's acting. The emotion comes from Domino herself, and the direction to put on the sunglasses does much of the work. That's why the previous poster associated a very slight tremor in an insert shot of Bond's hand (and there's a chance it may not even have been Connery's) with some sort of emotional response on Bond's part. Without the music, the solid editing (the shots of Bond looking down and up are so well placed and timed) the scene would have fallen flat. It's more a filmmaking thing, not fully an acting one. Connery makes the correct decision to be more understated in that moment, but I suspect most actors would have done this anyway. I don't think it's him who carries that scene of I'm honest.
I dunno, in TB and YOLT he just didn't seem quite as engaged. I just find much of his performance sluggish. It's not an uncommon criticism and I think there's a reason for this. He just doesn't feel like the same Bond from the previous three films.
Heck, he's even not that fully engaged in Goldfinger, I mean those scenes in Kentucky.
His performance there was not on par with his previous two films.
In both TB and YOLT, I really agreed, it shows that he's tired of the role.
Agreed. Even after the heightened emotion of the scene I was talking about, you can tell Connery is reciting his lines rather woodenly during the longer takes ("Thousands, hundreds of people will die" - honestly, the editor in me often thinks 'was that the best take they got?' when I watch it).
This is why I get annoyed when people claim that the moment was simply used to sell a brand of sunglasses (not sure if Connery himself said this, or indeed if it was Young or anyone like that). No, viewers are not 'seeing things' which are not there, neither is it Connery giving some sort of Oscar worthy performance. They are responding to how the scene is put together. For all of the strange editing decisions that TB employed (that fight on the Disco Volante during the climax is... well, it's pretty badly directed and edited for me) that moment works wonderfully.
"Thunderball is not the tightest of Bond films. According to Bond historian Steven Jay Rubin, director Terence Young grew disenchanted with the film during the final weeks of shooting and left it in the hands of editor Peter Hunt, who supervised the post-production and tried to make sense of the climactic action while rushing to meet a Christmas 1965 release. "
https://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/235280
Peter Hunt was really a hardworking man, his loyalty to EON.
I wished he'd directed more Bond films.
It's difficult to point the finger at one individual, but I know Young was not exactly the most visual director anyway. While some of Hunt's editing techniques are a bit dated in TB (hell, sped up footage and jump cuts were dated by the 60s frankly) it's possible they were due to not having been given enough footage during those later sequences, and he seemed able to visualise and better piece together a story as a director (makes sense if you started as an editor).
The Bond Girl actresses being dubbed in the 60's and 70's and therefore just hired for their looks (beauty queens, models) with no acting ability, then got dubbed.
Why not just get a competent actresses who could speak English back in the day?
But I'm still thankful for a handful of real, fluently english speaking actresses that were hired back in the day: Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, and Jane Seymour.
I'm not sure about Ekland though (was she dubbed too?), still a real actress though.
YOLT I'll grant you, that's an almost universal sentiment among fans - save for revered critic Pauline Kael who thought that was his best performance - but it actually is an uncommon criticism on the TB performance. I've seen numerous instances of people saying it's Connery playing the character at the top of his game. Perhaps he's just at the point it seemed effortless.
Give me examples of what you think are superior performances by Bond actors.
They've even dragged his GF performance into it as well while preferring NSNA. I'm all for people expressing their opinions, but these first four performances are why Connery is still revered today as Bond.
I'd argue it's his first three that are the reason he's revered, not necessarily TB. Not sure what to say either - I've personally noticed it's a common criticism of both TB and YOLT that Connery looks a bit bored, and it's a feeling I've always gotten from watching those two films (both of which I'm generally not a fan of anyway). I think there are many better performances by other Bond actors... Craig in most of his films (NTTD is an unusual performance in the context of Bond so I can understand why people would hate it above others), Moore in most of his films, Dalton's performances... I'd say even in less well regarded films like DAD Brosnan actually looks a lot more at ease during the Cuba scenes and is less stiff than Connery at points in TB. I'd personally say his performance in TWINE is worse than Connery's in TB, and this is due to bad direction/acting. Again, Connery just seems to be going through the motions in this one.
Not that any of that will mean much if you disagree anyway. And yes, I always prefer to watch NSNA over TB (I dislike both films) and actually think Connery's performance is more enjoyable to watch in that one.
Unless Connery left a diary saying "I was bored here, disengaged there, phoned in it here, and generally didn't do the job I was hired to do," I tend not to make judgments about what an actor was feeling in any given scene. From his introductory Bond, James Bond, Connery has always projected a nonchalance that can be mistaken for weariness and boredom.
TB - A good film, but it marks the point where the gadgets and gimmicks started to take over, in the first of many labored attempts to replicate the winning ingredients of GF.
DAF - The onset of the Hamilton/Mankiewicz era. Inconsequential stories, lowered budgets, annoying bimbos, and an air of smirky contempt.
GE - Well-crafted and crowd-pleasing, but a signal that the Brosnan era was going to consist of postmodern Bond pastiches laced with 90s action film cliches.
SP - The point where the obsession with making every mission personal became ridiculous, with Brofeld and the botched reintroduction of SPECTRE. A film that didn't deserve a sequel but got one anyway.
I can imagine being in the theatre, after having seen DN, FRWL, GF, and thinking that we're going to get a ripping adaption of the Blofeld Trilogy, and being quite disappointed with TB.