Thunderball (1965, UK)

At first I was enjoying this movie, but to be honest I think the ending completely killed it. I'm glad to see elsewhere online that I'm not the only one to think that while the underwater fight sequences were cool, they dragged on and on to the point where I honestly lost interest. My attention drifted for awhile before I snapped back and watched the last few minutes.

Until then, it was pretty clever. I liked SPECTRE's complicated plan to steal a NATO plane and two nuclear weapons, which was complicated and bordering on ridiculous but still strangely plausible. I liked Largo and his lair, complete with man-eating shark pool. I liked his mistress Domino, who is essentially trapped with Largo, her role in Bond's mission, and her penchant for only black and white clothes. The early part of the movie where Bond is recovering from injuries at a health-spa type place was interesting because it showed that he was only human (although I could have done without the jetpack escape from the fight that put him there).

Overall it was a good one, but I could have used more traveling and edited-down underwater sequences.

Rating: 3.5