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As I watch this series of films progress, many of them ones I have never seen before including this one, it brings home two particular things: firstly the amount of plaigarism (sorry, "paying homage to") by the Austin Powers film spoofs and, secondly, how much of a bastard Bond really is. He's not a ladies man at all, as shown on the dance floor during the film, for example. When he's being shot at, he moves his dancing partner in the way of the bullet. I'm sorry, but that's really not the most romantic thing to do.

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. is up to its old tricks again and out to avenge the death of Colonel Jacques Bouvar, at the hands of 'Monsieur Bond' (Sean Connery). The plan this time is to demand a ransom from the North Atlantic Treaty powers of $280 million (£100 million, at the time) Agent Count Lippe (Guy Doleman) has been dispatched to the South of England to do the business.

The best way to make a threat is by stealing a Vulcan plane from NATO containing a couple of atomic bombs and say you'll destroy a major city within seven days if payment is not made. The plan to stop S.P.E.C.T.R.E. No.2 Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) is codenamed "Thunderball".

The cast also includes two Bond girls - one good, Domino Derval (Claudine Auger) and one bad - Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi), the latter being No.2's other half - and yet another actor playing the role of Felix Leiter (Rik Van Nutter).

An anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio, with a number of flecks on the print at times, although moreso during the opening scene, but it still looks damn good for a 35-year-old film. Surprisingly, the opening credits are slightly windowboxed. The average bitrate is a good 5.81Mb/s, often peaking over 7Mb/s.

The sound comes across in remastered Dolby Digital 5.1, bringing life to all the action sequences from the jetpack, through "the rack" spine-stretching scene to the underwater spectacle. Oh and not to mention the opening 'gunshot' in the traditional Bond walk-on.

Extras :

Chapters :

Languages & Subtitles :

And there's more... :

• Featurette: Inside Thunderball (4 mins): A brief note from Patrick MacNee about how different versions of the film have featured different dialogue dubbed over, some with missing music.

• Featurette: The Thunderball Phenomenon (30 mins): A look at the most successful Bond film of the sixties, again narrated by MacNee and featuring clips from the film and chat from actresses Lois Maxwell, Molly Peters, Luciana Paluzzi, Michael Van Blaricum, President of the Ian Fleming Foundation and Q (the late Desmond Llewelyn).

• Featurette: The Making of Thunderball (27 mins): Not had enough featurettes yet? This one follows in the same vein, again narrated by MacNee and including chat from Sean Connery and director Terence Young.

• 4 Trailers (8 mins): It only states three, but there are four, the last one being a combination of Thunderball and You Only Live Twice, the fifth Bond film. The first two are in anamorphic 2.35:1, while the last two are letterboxed at approx 1.66:1.

• TV spots (3½ mins): Five altogether. Two for this film alone in 4:3-cropped black and white, plus three in colour offering a "Bond Sale" double-bill of Thunderball and From Russia With Love.

• Radio spots (5 mins): 10 radio adverts from United Artists to promote the film in the USA.

• The Thunderball Gallery: Over 600 still images from several different points in the film

• 2 Audio Commentaries: one featuring director Terence Young and "others", with the second featuring Peter Hunt, John Hopkins and "others".

Menu :

This is fourth Bond film to feature Connery and another one I haven't seen before. There's some good action set pieces, but also a handful of slow scenes and Adolfo Celi isn't the most deadly of Bond villains. However, when things do calm down a bit, more action isn't too far away and it's weird to see land-based physics applied to the underwater climax. The disc is also stacked with extras again, so this DVD comes well-recommended.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

The following is a list of all the Bond films now available in production order with their dates of release, followed by the unofficial movies:

22nd May 2000		Dr. No
26th June 2000		From Russia With Love
24th July 2000		Goldfinger
28th August 2000	Thunderball
25th September 2000	You Only Live Twice
25th September 2000	On Her Majesty's Secret Service
30th October 2000	Diamonds Are Forever
30th October 2000	Live And Let Die
27th November 2000	The Man With The Golden Gun
27th November 2000	The Spy Who Loved Me
26th December 2000	Moonraker
26th December 2000	For Your Eyes Only
29th January 2001	Octopussy
29th January 2001	A View To A kill
26th February 2001	The Living Daylights
26th February 2001	Licence To Kill
26th March 2001		Goldeneye
26th March 2001		Tomorrow Never Dies
22nd May 2000		The World Is Not Enough
2nd May 2003		Die Another Day: Special Edition
23rd April 2001		Casino Royale
23rd April 2001		Never Say Never Again

November 2001		James Bond: Agent Under Fire

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: