Never Say Never Again

Irvin Kershner – 1983 – England

If you’re going to mount a counter-production to the Eon studio's canonical James Bond films, you better have something monumental to offer.  All that Never Say Never Again really has is the return of beloved Sean Connery to his star-making role, some 12 years after quitting the official Bond franchise.  That was enough for people who felt that the series had taken a downturn since he left it, but not enough for those who wanted better films, not just friendly faces.  From its jokey title to its final shot of Connery winking into the lens, there is something insubstantial and hasty about the whole affair.  Additionally, I’ve never understood how the decision was made to remake Thunderball instead of using a story that hadn’t been filmed yet.  It could also have carved a unique niche for itself by attempting a more modest and stricter adaptation of an Ian Fleming story (or at least one patterned on Fleming’s style) instead of merely continuing the flamboyant way of the Eon films that it was supposedly trying to correct.  It’s not bad; but it’s very long and way too familiar when it should be fresh, and way too facetious when it should be compelling.  The best thing about it, in my opinion, is Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush, a vivacious and joyously evil SPECTRE agent who is simply having a blast from beginning to end, to a point that she can’t even contain herself from dancing up a staircase and billowing her own hair and wardrobe as she sashays through hotel lobbies.  If there were no other Bond films being made at the time, this one might seem stronger, but when stood next to the official Bond entry that premiered earlier in 1983, Octopussy, it is pretty pathetic.  Octopussy is one of the best Roger Moore Bonds, and its success hardly supports the idea that the world was in dire need of an alternate Bond cycle.  Never Say Never Again did well and a lot of people like it, but you are almost never able to forget while watching it that something is off.  You don’t get the famous Monty Norman theme, the gun-barrel opening, the Maurice Binder credit sequence, the John Barry score, or the fun of seeing actors (beyond Connery) reprising their recurring roles, like M, Q and Moneypenny.  These are all part of the stew that make the Bond films so rich.  True, Connery counts for a lot, but him alone, and looking twenty years past his prime, doesn’t outweigh the loss of everything else the Eon films offer.