Never Say Never Again Film Review

In the world of James Bond films alot of people mainly know about the films that are produced by EON Productions with those films being classed as official James Bond films. Yet not alot of people know of two unofficial James Bond films with the first one being a parody version of Casino Royale from the 1960's and the film that i'm going to be talking to you all about today as this film is actually a remake of an official James Bond film and heck it even has the same star and producer of the official version of the story and so then join me as I review the film that is the final time that Sir Sean Connery played the role of James Bond in a film with the film in question being called simply just "Never Say Never Again" enjoy.

The plot of this film is when two nuclear missiles are stolen by SPECTRE it's up to a now elderly James Bond to find them before it's far to late. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that good with this films plot being nothing more then a carbon copy of the plot of Thunderball with nothing new added to it to make it seem fresh and new again which is something that really does make you wonder why they bothered to remake the film in the first place outside of the fact that this films producer Kevin McClory had the film rights to the Thunderball novel which he already turned into a film for the official series in the sixties with this films plot just being lifeless for lack of a better word as there's really nothing to this films plot that makes it stand out from all of the other action film plots that were around at the time outside of the fact that the film has an older James Bond which even then was true for the official series as well so this films plot doesn't even have that going for it but to this films credit it does expand upon several scenes which barely got mentioned in the original film like in the original film we never really find out why Bond is at the health clinic in the first place where as here it's because of the fact that M wants him to be healthier and that's it but even then none of the films additions save the plot of the film from being just as boring as it was in Thunderball with the plot of this film not even being really rather entertaining and nor is it really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. 

Starring in this film is Sir Sean Connery as James Bond and Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximillian Largo. Also starring in this film is Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush , Kim Basinger as Domino Petachi , Bernie Casey as Felix Leiter , Alec McCowen as Q , Edward Fox as M , Pamela Salem as Miss Moneypenny , Rowan Atkinson as Nigel Small-Fawcett , Saskia Cohen-Tanugi as Nicole , Pat Roach as Lippe , Anthony Sharp as Lord Ambrose and Max Von Sydow as Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With the films acting in this film being as good as it is mainly due to the fact that this films director Irvin Kershner really does know how to get a good performance out of his actors something which he really needed to do in this film as alot of this films actors just feel like that there sleepwalking through this film and don't really bother to turn in a good performance in this film with even Rowan Atkinson who is usually really funny in anything that he's in here coming across as being more annoying that actually funny with the worst example of this being Sir Sean Connery himself as we know from all of the other James Bond film that he did that he can be a really good actor who can turn in a good performance heck just look at Goldfinger and the original Thunderball as proof of that and yet here in this film because he wasn't doing the film because he cared about the material and was only doing it for the money his performance comes across as being petty and greedy this is despite the fact he is still really good in this film heck both he and Kim Basinger are the films best actors as she does come across as being the only actor who is actually trying to turn in a good performance and he is still likable in the role of James Bond with the acting that's in this film not really being helped by the fact that the script for this film is just so bad as it gives none of this films actors anything to work with interms of what it is that there actual characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something which is something that really does help to hurt the overall quality of the acting that's in this film.

From  a character point of view this film doesn't really fair all that much better as outside of Bond there's only one other character that is memorable in this film that being Fatima Blush. As the films main Bond Girl Domino is just a bland character who has nothing really to her that makes her feel unique and while that might also be true for the Thunderball version of the character that take on the character plays a more active role in the plot of the film where as here her role seems to be to get rescued by Bond and that's really it with even Bond himself not really bein that well done of a character as the films makes alot of jokes about this Bond being old which does nothing for his character as Bond doesn't really feel true to himself with him being just as bland as Domino is with the best character in whole film being Fatima Blush just due to the fact that she loves to torture people with it being made clear as day that Barbara Carrera is having a blat playing her with her being this films version of the far more superior Fiona Volpe with both characters taking great pride and great menace in what it is that they do with this being something that does make both characters really entertaining characters as you never really know just what it is that there going to do net with Fatima even having kind of a Xenia Onatopp vibe to her which is something that does work for her character as much like Xenia and Fiona Fatima does take great pride in seducing her targets before killing them with her having a slight smile every time she's given orders to go and kill someone which is something that does feel true to her character with the rest of the films characters really badly handled even the main MI6 regulars are just done so badly in this film.

As alot of you will no doubt know this film is quite literally a remake of Thunderball with this being due to the fact that when Kevin McClory got the film rights to the book he only got the rights to the book Thunderball and nothing else. With it being to complicated to go into the whole backstory behind the controversy of the original book but lets just say that in involves Ian Fleming , Kevin McClory and screen writer Jack Whittingham getting drunk after coming up with the general idea for what would become the book of Thunderball and not being able to recall who came up with what which did mean that when EON Productions wanted to make a film version of the book as Ian had turned the idea into a book and not given Jack and Kevin credit for the story they had to go to him and bring him on as a producer for that film with alot of the things that didn't work in that film returning in this one with the idea being that when Kevin produced the original film he could legally produce another adaptation for up to ten years and EON Productions got the rights to both SPECTRE and Blofeld for that same amount of time with this making this film pointless as why would anyone want to watch a lesser remake of a film that wasn't that good to begin with as legally all Kevin could have done with the Bond films is just produce newer versions of Thunderball as he never had the rights to any of the other James Bond books to begin with with this being the one thing that drove him into an early grave as making this film was his passion and it later became his obsession as he tried to do it again and again with him trying to get the rights to more Bond books and even trying to get the rights to the Thunderball book as well as that's how obsessed he became with turning the book into another movie.

Much like the official James Bond films this one does also have a title song with this one also being called "Never Say Never Again" and was sung by Lani Hall. With the song itself being bad with it being as bad as songs like Die Another Day and All Time High are as while yes those songs are indeed pretty bad in their own right there is still something memorable about those songs be it the singing as was the case with All Time High or the music video for it as was the case with Die Another Day here tho despite the song having a really good singing in the from of Lani Hall who god bless her does do her best to make this songs weak attempt at lyrics work and somewhat make sense just can't make this song as good as alot of the other official James Bond theme songs are as the song does feel really flat and boring like it was the first attempt of creating a song and the makers of this film just went with it because they clearly didn't care enough about the film to make it as good as it could have been with this films song just being bland and boring in all aspects of it's production with even the songs lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman being weak lyrics that could have been done so much more better and what's worse is the fact that the films director Irvin Kershner originally wanted James Horner to do the music for the film but it was vetoed by Sir Sean Connery himself which makes no sense as surely you'd want someone who can create good music to do exactly that for your film and while Michel Legrand does a passable job in this film the film would have had a far more better score and opening theme song if thy were written by James Horner.

Largo in this film much like the rest of the films characters does come across as being a really weak character. With this being due to the fact that the character doesn't get alot of screen time even when compared to the original films take on the character with him here being a billionaire busisness man that when in public likes to give money to children's charities but behind closed doors is this seeming mad man who will do whatever it takes to take over the world with the character not even having anything about him from a physical point of view that makes him stand out whereas the original character had an eye patch which wasn't much but it was something here tho he looks just like any other person in the film and even Blofeld for that matter who is known for having a deep scar from the bottom of his eye here has nothing with both characters being really weak villains with them both not really having an end plan outside of getting more rich and that's really it which is something that Largo was already doing in the first place and while yes in Thunderball he didn't have that much of a plan either he was still crazy enough and evil enough that you did still buy into him as a villain where as here he does nothing evil for alot of this films running time with hm using Fatima to do alot of the dirty work for him which OK fair enough makes sense for his character but it also makes him a really weak villain as us the audience have no reason to fear for either Bond or Dominos safety as for all we could know Largo could be someone that Bond could easily defeat something which really does actually happen in the films climax and because of that we feel nothing when the character really does end up dying at the hands of Domino.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly two hours and fourteen minuets and five seconds. Which to be fair o this film is pretty much the exact grand total running time that you'd expect a James Bond film to have but even so this film spends so much time in just setting up the plot when it really doesn't need to due to the fact that it's just remaking a film that we've already seen in the first place with the film just about having the right amount of plot there to cover that amount of running time in the first place and yet even so this film really doesn't use it's running time all that wisely as the film doesn't take the time that it should have dine to fully develop it's plot with the film being alot more focused on giving us forced bad comedy with Rowan Atkinson and in giving us alot of underwater scenes then it is in developing it's plot which is something that could have made this film be slightly more better then what it actually is in the first place with this even effecting the films characters as well as none of this films characters get any time to fully flesh out there character and get the character development that they really should have gotten with there not really being an excuse for this as while the official James Bond films could get away as they could always argue that Bond got his development in other films here tho that was never going to be the case and therefor characters like Bond and Domino should have gotten there character development in this film as those really are the films main characters and yet we know just as much about them coming out of the film then we did coming into the film but I really will admit that this film really does have some really good pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is an action film that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really bad. With this films action being alot like the rest of the film in that it's just bland and forgettable as there's nothing about the film from an action point of view that stands out and feels unique and while alot of the bad official James Bond films still have entertaining action in them here in this film there's nothing that's all that entertaining in the action with it being made clear as day that the makers of this film weren't all that bothered in giving us a well crafted action film and were instead alot more focused on making sure that we knew that Sean Connery was back as Bond and were banking on the Bond IP in getting us to go and see the film in the first place that they forgot to give us good action scenes in the process with the films only good action scene being the car chase scene between Bond and Fatima and that's really it and even then it's because of the fact that that scene does go a little bit over the top that that action scene can get with Bond in a motorbike performing a jump out of the back of a lorry and over a car in a tunnel which is just so bonkers that it does kind of work for this film and it's something that makes you wonder why this film didn't have more fun and over the top action scenes as that's when this films action gets to be alot of fun to watch in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall out of the two James Bond films that got released in 1983 Octopussy is easily the better of the two films as that film was telling a different story and was fun to watch where as with this film it's copying the plot from Thunderball and isn't that fun to watch which makes this a pointless film to watch in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad thigs that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies ad gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Google Images this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from Google Images are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Google Images really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition.