Never Say Never Again (1983) [14160]

Yup, this was Sean Connery's last hurrah as Bond...James Bond. "Never Say Never Again" is an oddball in the annals of Bond films as it is basically the Thunderball script, that Connery had already done years prior, done again. In addition the film is not always recognized in the ascension of Bond films as belonging to canon. The title, which is very catchy, is drawn from Connery's own utterance after leaving his last official James Bond film years before.

A Rodger Moore weary public may have coaxed Connery out of "retirement" but I have a feeling he wanted to show he still had some vim and vigor left in him portraying the character. After all, Connery was in his early 50s when he assumed the role again. If it was Connery's intention to show he could squeak one more Bond adventure out of him, he succeeded.

Not opening with the typical Bond visuals of creativity, the film tries with a screen full of black 007's and a very obvious 1983 style tune that wants to capture the feel of a real Bond theme. It doesn't quite get there with its quirky high toned vocals but is never the less interesting. In fact the whole approach to recapturing the "old" Bond is interesting stuff. The film plays to Bonds age with dialogue geared to serving up comments about a washed up 007, especially from Q. We get Kim Bassinger and Barbara Carrera as "Bond girls" to prove Bonds still raging libido. His masseur scene with Bassinger is great 'Bond loving the ladies' fun.

This one has Max Van Sydow as Blofeld and he does a capable job although it leans a bit flat for me. Of course world wide domination through nuclear blackmail is his aim. You get a few gadgets and an excellent fight scene early on that for me makes the film. Bond conquers in shall we say, an unusual way. How can I really put down a film with Connery as the ultimate secret agent.

This 1995 laserdisc is to my knowledge the only one released in widescreen, and there were a good number of releases. The video quality is very good...at times. I mean for the most part banding and drifting flesh tones are held to a minimum and I found this release to be an improvement over the prior one. I'm sorry that I have to go into my cliched phrase, "it has a nice film-like look", but it does. I haven't seen the overpriced out of print blu ray but I'll get to it one day.

The audio is a little below par. Although we get a Dolby Surround listed disc, the surrounds go to little use on my capable system. Many 80s films just didn't cut it in the sound arena even putting aside any remix for the LD. As a matter of fact the films opening tune sounds pretty "warbley", as if the play button just got pushed on a cassette player. That fortunately does not continue throughout the film. You will get the "open audio" sound that many of us desire from LDs, but we're not talking premo ld sound.

I will say that "Never Say Never Again" is not a laserdisc I would hurry up and get. Still, its a decent Bond film for the era because of Connery at the helm and the laserdisc is enjoyable even with its flaws.