It must mean something that Irvin Kershner, the best director ever to make a James Bond movie, has not made the best James Bond movie—probably that the Bond films are the par excellence products of the industrial cinema, and are irreparably compromised by any inflections of personal style. Not that Kershner has brought many to bear, apart from his usual balanced wide-screen compositions and gallery of eccentric supporting characters; it’s his sense that he is superior to the series (which he certainly is) that introduces a fatal strain of campiness and condescension. And without absolute conviction, no action film can survive: if there’s no belief, there’s no danger. With Sean Connery, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Barbara Carrera, and Kim Basinger; the plot, for complicated legal reasons, is a replay of Thunderball.
