Never Say Never Again (1983)

The US DVD of Never Say Never Again, the 'unofficial' James Bond movie released in the same year as Roger Moore's penultimate entry, Octopussy, finally arrived, and we settled down to watch Sean Connery's farewell to 007. Sean Connery and his wigs. 

To be fair to Connery, his physique looked good (there are a few too many scenes with him half-naked), but he was a bit grey and haggard up top - a criticism often lodged at Moore in the later movies. Unfortunately, everything in NSNA feels a bit tired. The action and pace is rather slow, the music (when there is any) is very twangy and 80's and uninspiring, and several days later, there's not much that sticks in my mind about it. 

Kim Basinger was good, but the baddie, Largo was a non-threatening presence. And the least said about the computer game battle sequence the better. The best of the whole thing were Edward Fox's take on M, and Rowan Atkinson's small role as a bumbling company man. The plot replays Thunderball's, although I didn't really notice, perhaps because it's so long since I've seen it. I thought Thunderball had a bit more 'oomph' about it though. There was far too much underwater work in this one - so much so that the final battle between Bond and Largo takes place under the sea, resulting in a slow-moving pantomime due to the lack of dialogue and room for movement. There were a few well placed gags here and there, but overall Never Say Never Again is clearly one of the lesser Bonds, official or otherwise. It's still better than Moonraker though.