TGWTG User Blogs

Oh you thought I was going to skip this one didn't you?  Nope, this is the most famous non EON Bond film out there.  The main reason is that it reunite Sean Connery with the Bond character, many people were overjoyed to see this knockoff and checked it out.  However what they got was something really bizarre.

Since it is a knockoff it had to change things in the Bond universe, in this case MI6's 00 branch was being cut and Bond was mainly a teacher until SPECTRE comes into the game again.  That's right SPECTRE is back and they are pissed, they go and arm two practice nukes with live ammo and steal it during a training sequence to hold the world for ransom.  Wait a minute, this is Thunderball!  No I am serious this is a modern version of thunderball without all the ocean elements to it, at least if you are going to rip off a Bond film make it a damn good one.

Well this movie is just plain odd for the fact that for some reason the British government hasn't funded any of Bond's normal outlets.  M is cutting the program due to no funds, Q has to make defective items becuase the RnD costs are too high, and Moneypenny is nothing like she should be.

This movie was odd in a bad way, the SPECTRE group had evil on their faces the entire time, and the one assissgn that was sent to kill bond was a Psycho.  Seriously why would you laugh like mad when you are about to kill a secret agent?  Now this movie has one famous thing about it, the arcade.  Bond plays a video game, which looks like a 3D version of Pong where the loser gets electricuted.  I say this is the scene that stands out becuase people from Destroy the Humanoid and Jay Z has used this in various videos and parodied it.

Also when thinking back why did they go with Thunderball?  The ad campaign was to go see the "real" James Bond in a sequal.  Obviously a slap to Roger Moore's creditials, but if you are using Sean as the real Bond, his last movie had SPECTRE dead and gone.  So why pick up with a stort story when they were the prodomonite figure?

Now the movie does not have the scenery done as well as Octopussy, nor the acting and plot, however for a film with less then half the budget of the real one, it did what it could.  Sean plays it cool like he does, everyone else goes over the top with their characters, and the sets are nothing to take to the bank.  All in all this is an ok remake of a great Bond film, and if you watch HBO enough time, you may see this appear every now and then.  That's how I got this movie, recording it from HBO on a VHS tape.  Those were the days before the DVRs, good times...

I give this a 3 out of 7.