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 Largo’s 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 wasn’t produced by Eon. As such, the recognizable Bond theme is missing, as is the opening gun barrel sequence and the familiar MI6 office cast. Other than these factors, it’s a 007 film through and through. While it made a respectable profit at the box office, it didn’t do as well as “Octopussy” with Roger Moore, released four months earlier.

It’s a competent enough James Bond film it just pales in comparison to the dynamic “Octopussy,” which is arguably the most adventuresome, action-packed 007 flick. While Connery was three years younger than Moore, he looked older. It's also not as good as the movie it remakes, "Thunderball" (1965). Speaking of which, why try to remake such a great Bond flick anyway? Connery already did this story 18 years earlier and very effectively; producers should've given him an entirely new tale for his final stab at 007.

Some of the highlights include a knock-down-drag-out scrap between Bond and a big lug at the clinic; a clash with a couple of sharks in the waters of the Bahamas; a wild motorcycle/car chase in Nice, France; an escape from an old fortress in North Africa; and an exciting shootout at an archeological site.

Super-sharp Barbara Carrera stands out on the feminine front while Basinger is winsome enough, but she never interested me. Prunella Gee is striking as Patricia, a professional at the English clinic. Saskia Cohen Tanugi plays an MI6 agent, Nicole, while Lucy Hornak has a small role as a cute nurse.

The film runs 2 hours, 14 minutes, and was shot in England; Nassau, Bahamas; the French Riviera; Almería, Andalucía, Spain; Malta; and Silver Springs, Florida.

GRADE: B-

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 good as the megalomaniac - his Nero in "Quo Vadis" (1985) being a good example, and von Sydow never lets down as a baddie, but the rest of this is as clunky as it is cheesy and the efforts from Basinger and the even more wooden Barbara Carrera ("Fatima Blush") do nothing at all to lift this above the level of torrid and innuendo-strewn drivel. It also takes for ever to get going, and at just shy of 2¼ hours it struggles to sustain much interest as the dialogue lumbers along and the action remains thin on the ground and on the water. It's worth watching only to remind us all of just how good some of the there "Bond" films were, but otherwise it's a real disappointment.