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Synopsis: The double-"O" agents have been retired after a new regime takes over MI-6. They are regarded as an antiquated and extreme tool.  Despite this, they are still kept in tip top shape in case the need to activate them again arrives.  Chief among the embarassments in the double-"O" corps is James Bond, agent 007, whose insubordination is legendary.  The new head of MI-6 decides that the reason for 007's intractability lies in his diet and lifestyle.  "Too many 'free radicals,'" he concludes.  "'Free radicals?'" Bond asks.  "Toxins built up from eating too much red meat," M replies, "too many vodka martinis, and too much white bread."  "I shall give up the white bread," Bond retorts, but to no avail.  He is packed off to a health spa to purge his system (with predictable results).  While at the spa, Bond stumbles onto a plot to steal two American cruise missiles carrying live nuclear warheads.  A pilot with the US Air Force has become a puppet for SPECTRE and is recuperating at the spa from an operation that replaced his cornea with a cornea matching the cornea of the president of the United States.  SPECTRE's plot goes ahead, and they succeed in capturing the missiles.  Their agent in this is shipping magnate, Largo, who plans to implement a scheme called "The Tears of Allah."  007 is reactivated to recover the warheads and foil the scheme.  He butts heads with Largo, who he duels in a video game battle for world domination, and with Largo's henchwoman, Fatima Blush who is intent on killing Bond.  In the meantime, Bond attempts to seduce Largo's paramour, Domino. This drives Largo to the point of insane jealousy, and he decides to put them both out of the picture.  Bond, meanwhile, has discovered that Largo's "Tears of Allah" plan aims to set the largest oilfield in the world on fire with a nuclear explosion....

Bond, James Bond: This renegade Bond film, made by a production company that had nothing to do with the other James Bond movies, simply would not work without the presence of Sean Connery to lend it legitimacy.  Connery walked way from Bond twice a decade earlier (after You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever).  Twelve years elapsed before he returned to the role.  It's one of his best turns as Bond and he is the principal reason for watching the movie. Say what you like about the other actors who have played Bond, Connery forever owns the part.  The Bond in this film is a little long in the tooth, actually, but Connery plays him with more aplomb than Roger Moore ever mustered when he got too old for the part.  The movie seems to recognize Connery's age and Bond seems to be returning to service in the context of the film after a long hiatus.   More importantly, Connery was a better actor twelve years further on, and was more in command of his screen presence.  This ease with his image lends him even more credibility as an aging secret agent.

Shaken, Not Stirred: Never Say Never Again is ostensibly a remake of Thunderball, the producers having accquired dubious rights to the novel after Ian Fleming's death.  In order to sell the movie as a Bond film--Connery aside--the movie assembles a bunch of Bond-movie cliche's.  Bond pays a visit to the Q branch for some spy gadgets, Bond sleeps with a number of easily seduced women, the head of SPECTRE strokes a white cat, etc.  Director Irvin Kershner pokes fun at some of these conventions.  Traditionally, Bond engages his arch-enemy in a game of chance in the casino (there's ALWAYS a casino, which is why the only American location in the series was Las Vegas in Diamonds Are Forever).  Bond's usual game of choice is bacarat.  Here, the casino is stocked with video games and Bond and Largo engage in a holographic game of world domination.  Bond is also usually supplied with a spy car, packed with weaponry--traditionally an Aston Martin, although this has changed recently as BMW has footed a huge product placement bill to put Bond into one of THEIR cars. In this movie, Bond gets a motorcycle instead. Perhaps most interesting is the casting of Bernie Casey, a black actor, as Bond's perennial ally in the CIA, Felix Lighter.  Some of these ideas, particularly the casino filled with video games, are pretty silly and instantly date the movie. 

Rogues Gallery: Bond movies are usually only as good as their villains.  In this regard, Never Say Never Again is pretty good.  The casting of Max Von Sydow as the head of SPECTRE works marvellously.  This film was made at a time when Von Sydow was having a great deal of fun at Hollywood's expense, appearing in romps like Flash Gordon and Conan the Barbarian.  Here, he clearly relishes his roll as the power behind the throne, brief as it is.  Klaus Maria Brandauer may well be the most interesting and most complex of Bond's supervillains.  He his clearly off his nut, but Brandauer plays him with a modicum of restraint. The script even provides him with motives that are clearly comprehensible, beyond the normal "I want to rule the world from my island fortress" so common to Bond villains. There is a scene where Domino confronts Largo and says what is obvious: "You're insane!" she says.  Largo dods distractedly and agrees: "Yah."  Brandauer is probably the best actor to ever appear as a Bond supervillain and he elevates the role to his level instead of vice versa.  Barbara Carerra is another matter.  She is a limited actress who seemed to have found a niche playing psychotic fashion plates during the early eighties.  Her character has a wonderful name--Fatima Blush--but Carerra is clearly giving the same performance she gave in I, The Jury.  Not that that's a bad thing, though.  Sometimes typecasting works pretty well, and since her character is essentially the same, what the heck. She sure looks good in the role and limited acting ability or no, she blows Kim Bassinger off the screen.  Ms. Bassinger, an equally limited actress, is a cipher, a vapid accessory to both Largo and then Bond.  This was Bassinger's first movie (?) and her inexperience shows.  As M, Bond's uptight boss, Edward Fox is a hoot.  He plays the role as a preening martinet who has discovered new age nutrition.  He's hilarious, and certainly the most engaging "M" until Dame Judi Dench took over the role in Goldeneye.

Identity Crisis:  Unlike most of the Bond films from the Albert Broccoli/United Artists series, Never Say Never Again seems to have its own identity, in spite of the wholesale sampling of Bond tradition on display in the film. Part of this stems from the source material:  Thunderball was the film that followed Goldfinger and the Bond films had yet to adopt the Goldfinger model for almost all of the subsequent films.  As a result, Never Say Never Again avoids many of the pitfalls that make movies like Moonraker and A View to A Kill so unwatchable.  And as the third coming of Sean Connery as Bond, it stakes itself out a nearly unassailable position in the Bond canon. 

Other James Bond movies reviewed on this site:

Goldfinger

The World is Not Enough