Never Say Never Again

Remakes are notorioiusly dodgy territory as you can almost be dead certain that at least half your audience will hate it because it's not like the original. If it's not at least as good as the original then you've lost the rest of them. Kevin McClory, at the end of the day actually only having the rights to Thunderball, was a little limited in his choice of Bond movie to remake and choosing one of the best remembered is always going to be a bad thing, regardless of whom you have playing Bond.

It's interesting to see just how much of a difference Roger Moore had made to the Bond movies. The general audience will sit down in front of Never Say Never Again and, aside from briefly pondering why it doesn't have the Bond theme, the gunbarrel logo and Roger Moore, will move on and see a standard Bond movie. However, the fact is that Roger Moore has changed audience expectations of what a Bond movie is. Sean Connery may be returning to the world of Bond, but he is not playing the character he played in the sixties. This Bond is a bizarre amalgam of Moore's Bond and a caricature of his own Bond. He is even smoking cigars instead of cigarettes! Additionally Connery has aged considerably since "the day" but strangly enough he looks better in this than he did in Diamonds Are Forever.

Obviously the plot of this movie is essentially the same as the plot of Thunderball (although there is a vague insinuation that this is a continuation of the previous Bond movies - the new "M" is acknowledged as not being the same as the one Bond knew in the sixties, and he already knows of Shrublands - but as a consequence of this, Dr Evil's line "let's just steal a couple of nuclear bombs and hold the world to ransome like we usually do" is more on the money than would initially appear) but a lot of things are rearranged and a few of the characters have been a little altered - most notably the inclusion of Fatima Blush who replaces Fiona Volpe and Count Lippe in a slight tightening of the script that works quite well - in terms of tightening, more on Fatima later.

So while Sean Connery attempts to channel Roger Moore, the rest of the regular characters are, obviously, also recast. Edward Fox becomes the new "M", setting this movie at the end of the Eon series. Fox mumbles his way though the movie in a performance that is truly misjudged. By the end of the movie he offers Bond the reward of going to his club. The excitement must never stop at "M"'s home. "Q", or Algy as he is now known, is Alec McCowan, a cold ridden, Michael Caine-sounding armourer who has all the gadgets at his disposal (another change from Thunderball thanks to the Moore movies), while Pamela Salem delivers a vapid Moneypenny. In defiance of the idea of people having static skin colour, Felix Leiter is played by Bernie Casey, a black actor. Regardless of not looking like the character, Casey delivers the best performance of the movie and is perfectly cast - craps all over Norman Burton.
Annoyingly, but to be expected of course, is the fact that all characters have been seen before and therefore you can't help but compare them. Max Von Sydow actually is seen as Blofeld, still with his white cat, but sadly he lacks any of the threat of his predecessors; indeed he even manages to make Charles Gray's performance look good - at least Gray had charisma. Klaus Maria Brandeaur plays Max Largo - a name change from Emilio - and while he also lacks the suave menace of Adolfo Celi, at least he delivers a completely difference performance; more of a "man of the people" style of villain with an uncontrollable anger. Kim Basinger takes over the role of Domino (Petachi rather than Vitalli) and while she looks good (though nowhere near as stunning as Claudine Auger) she is a bit of a whiner. Rather curiously the character is now a dancer - apparently for Hot Gossip - who wears see-thru leotard, which is a little embarrassing for all. In fact the movie is overly sexist, highlighted by not only the see-thru leotard, but also Basinger wearing sexy silk pyjamas at the climax and a bikini at the end.

Barbara Carrera is Fatima Blush who, as noted earlier, takes over from both Fiona and Lippe (although a character called Lippe does appear but does nothing that the original did). Fatima appears to be an egotistical dominatrix who is certifiable and completely ineffective, managing to not kill Bond so many times it's not funny. It's not as even though she actually comes close on many occasions.

Rounding out the cast is Rowan Atkinson as the comic relief character of Nigel Small-Fawcett (yes...you read that right). Rowan does a good job, and is quite funny, but the character just doesn't seem right in the movie. There are, really, overly too many in-jokes in the movie, ranging from Algy's hope that now Connery is back there will be more gratuitous sex and violence to Connery's wink at the camera at the end after being told to never say never.

Curiously, in light of the fact that McClory has the rights to the movie version only of Thunderball, there seems to be a few more swings back to the novel - Bond drives a Bentley and Largo is number one rather than Blofeld. However greater changes include the introduction of remote-controlled sharks (welcome back, Dr Evil) and Bond and Largo playing a computer game called Domination instead of Baccarat. The computer game is a pretty stupid idea (though curiously at one point, Bond activates his "shield" which spirals in on his face recalling the Eon gunbarrel logo) and it's hard to imagine why anyone could stand up and say, without anyone raising an eyebrow, that he has devised a computer game which could kill the players. Bond wins - as he is supposed to - and then dances with Domino (as opposed to buying her a drink in the original). This is a tango which is so completely out of place in a Bond film it's not funny.

And this brings me to the music of the film which is incredibly corny, and used in a very strange manner. The Shrublands fight suffers on many levels, but the chief one is that there is no music to it (while we're on the topic the other reasons include people cheering a fight on TV which mirrors the real life fight - it was dumb in Octopussy it's dumb here - and Bond winning by throwing his urine sample into the face of his opponent). Frankly, the music gets off to a terrible start with a very eighties, but unmemorable, theme song and then proceeds through the cheesy music of Michael LeGrand.

Overall there is not much else to recommend the film. The photography is nice, but not exciting, and even Ricou Browning seems to have lost some of his flair for the underwater filming. The sets are particularly uninspiring, and while the Flying Saucer may be physically more impressive than the Disco Volante, it's certainly not visually. It's really hard to believe that the director of this film is the same guy who directed The Empire Strikes Back.
And we get to the final scene, which essentially sums up the movie - Sean Connery lounging around and doing bugger all except moaning what a Bond movie is supposed to be like (I usually have a martini, he moans, to wit the audience are thinking much the same). It's hard to be understand why McClory bothered to do a Bond movie, but given that Roger Moore can make a scene where he defuses a nuclear bomb dressed as a clown one of the tensest things you'll see; and Sean Connery can't make a brilliant script into a hugely entertaining film; it's easy to see why Octopussy beat Never Say Never Again at the box office.