Thunderball
1965
**½
Director: Terence Young
Cast: Sean Connery, Adolfo Celi, Claudine Auger, Luciana Paluzzi, Rik Van Nutter, Bernard Lee, Guy Doleman
If Goldfinger established the formula for the entire franchise, Thunderball is a bog-standard James Bond film without any high ideals. The plot revolves around 007's attempts to recover two stolen nukes before Spectre uses them to blow up a major metropol. The film is perfectly watchable, but it gives too much time to its extended underwater fights. The same story was remade as an "unofficial" Bond film Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery in the lead.
