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Me and my
Aortic Valve!

Dom Robinson reviews

Distributed by

MGM

    Cover
  • Cert:
  • Cat.no: 19882 DVD
  • Running time: 128 minutes
  • Year: 1983
  • Pressing: 2001
  • Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
  • Chapters: 16 plus extras
  • Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Pro Logic)
  • Languages: English
  • Subtitles: English (and hard of hearing)
  • Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
  • 16:9-enhanced: Yes
  • Macrovision: No
  • Disc Format: DVD 9
  • Price: £15.99
  • Extras: Theatrical Trailer

  • Director:

      Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Loving, Never Say Never Again, Robocop 2, S*P*Y*S, TV: SeaQuest DSV)

    Producer:

      Jack Schwartzman

    Screenplay:

      Lorenzo Semple Jr (from a story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and Ian Fleming)

    Music:

      Michael Legrand

    Cast:

      James Bond: Sean Connery
      Largo: Klaus Maria Brandauer
      Blofeld: Max Von Sydow
      Fatima: Barbara Carerra
      Domino: Kim Basinger
      Felix Leiter: Bernie Casey
      Q Algy: Alec McCowen
      M: Edward Fox
      Miss Moneypenny: Pamela Salem
      Small-Fawcett: Rowan Atkinson


Released in the same year as Octopussy, Never Say Never Again was a return to the Bond franchise for Sean Connery. Released as a 'rival' Bond film by the now-defunct Orion Pictures, the differences are obvious immediately in that there's no trademark John Barry theme accompanied by a stroll from right-to-centre before turning and firing, the film opens with the theme tune played over action instead of having the action first followed by a glossy credit sequence and there's a change in cast members for key roles.

Often seen as a remake of Thunderball because S.P.E.C.T.R.E. are at their worst again in making threats with bombs, the use of characters with the same names - such as Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), sent to do Blofeld's (Max Von Sydow) bidding, plus Domino (Kim Basinger), the good Bond girl, with Barbara Carerra as the bad alternative who takes Connery through another underwater diving scene early on.

As it's not an official Bond product there's no other regular cast members, so Q is affectionately known as "Algy" for Algernon (Alec McCowen), M is played by Edward Fox, Miss Moneypenny by Pamela Salem and Felix Leiter changes skin colour to become Bernie Casey. There's also a small role for British comedian Rowan Atkinson, best known these days for his role as Mr Bean, as another bumbling idiot, Bond's informant Nigel Small-Fawcett.

As for the film itself, it'll never be the best Bond film ever made but keeps you entertained for the two hours, despite occasionally dragging.


The film is presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen which occasional print scratches and flecks but on the whole it looks very watchable. The average bitrate is 6.5Mb/s, briefly peaking over 9Mb/s.

The sound is in Dolby Pro Logic, or so my Sony STR-DB930 amplifier says, but it really doesn't sound like that and there's certainly no sound FX that stand out, with the first 30 minutes of the soundtrack even sounding muffled to a degree.

In the extras dept. there's just an 80-second theatrical trailer in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen.

The disc contains a mere 16 chapters and both dialogue and subtitles are in English, the latter containing a hard of hearing option. The main menu contains animation and music but nothing like to the extravangance we've come to expect from the Bond collection.

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:

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

[Up to the top of this page]

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:

  • Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
  • Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
  • Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
  • Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
  • Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP