Sex and Guns and Judi Dench — Never Say Never Again — A Reactionary Transcript #25

In the hunt for the finest of the Bond pictures, I must take notes during my viewing. Here are my notes for the twenty-fifth of these case studies; Never Say Never Again.

The results will be posted heeeeeeere.

Never Say Never Again spoilers ahead.

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No roar, just… Orion

then a really hard to look at screen over some marshlands
crinkle cut chip shapes

this is the OPENING CREDITS I guess

okay, this is complicated now ‘cos they’re blending the opening creds with the film
Jimmy’s just knocked out a guard as he sneaks into a hoose
scaling a very straight and smooth tree then hosses a frisbee

all the guards go follow it and Bond ziplines in on the telephone wire and strangles a bloke
then blow pipes another

he flashbangs a room of chess players then bursts inside and guns ’em all down

there’s a lassie tied to a bed
Bond gets blindsided but he nuts his assailant and then frees the woman
who responds by stabbing him

someone is now watching the footage
oh, it was a training thing
he did it quick, but he died

he says he done alright
only died once in two weeks of simulations, lost his legs once n’all

the fella in charge is SO english

Bond has been teaching folk
and now he’s been put on a diet

so Bond pops off the the Shrublands health spa
the valet says something about his car like ‘they don’t make ’em like this anymore’
then Bond says ‘aye, it’s a bit old’ or somet and they’re obvs talking about him

gets a physical and he’s got a load of scar tissue

he needs to give a bloody urine sample
ridiculous

it’s cool that they’re treating him like an old dog though
the world of health foods and meditation and yoga coming in around him

a french lady is now going into a vault
she’s got neat hair

she goes into a room where there’s a big metal skull

a fella with a white cat is giving a meeting about arms deals
he’s head of SPECTRE

there’s a new plot afoot and we’re meeting the guy in charge, SPECTRE’s ‘Number One’ who gave a guy heroin and replaced his cornea with an indential of the president of the USA’s — Jack Petachi
he’s being looked after at Shrublands

Bond runs into a lady he likes and then she cracks his bones all ovva the shop
she’s havvin none of his bullony

back in his room, Bond gets a knock
it’s that nurse again
she’s brought him some salad, some lentils, and some goats cheese
he’s snuck in a case of caviar, eggs, vodka, and pate
absolut vodka as well
she wants a piece of that

Jack Petachi gets panicked when that french lady from before comes in posing as a nurse
she tells him off for smoking and then beats him up, threatening his sister, Domino
Bond hears the ruckus after his sexual relations are concluded
i mean, they’re doing it right at the window
and the French lass ain’t French anymore

the nurse gives him some instructions and then kisses him
Bond goes to the window but the blind pops up
he tries to hide but the nurse spies him

The next day, Bond goes snooping
finds a logo he saw the night before

hits the weights

a big lad knocks out the janitor and infiltrates the weight room with the hoover
big lad cuts the wire on the weights and chokes him out a bit, slamming them into his neck
Bond fights back and the two tussle
big lad tears some apparatus apart and then withstands having some weights thrown at him
throws Bond about a bit — Bond can’t match
Bond closes a door on him and hurts his nose but not for long
they fight through a tv room but no-one sees him cos they’re watching the footy

Bond legs it downstairs
manages to trip big lad up on the stairs
but then Bond gets thrown through a kitchen window
grabs a sharp knife
big lad has an answer for everything, pulling out a git wire thing that chops the knife in half
it’s a well choregraphed set piece, with the chef leggin it and shutting the door on Bond, forcing him and the big lad to dosey-do around the table
Bond chucks hot water at him and then dumps a shelf of crockery and a serving trolley on him
they accidentally burst into a lassie’s room and she don’t seem too bothered
Bond wraps big lad up in her quilt but then gets hossed through another door into like a chem lab

lotsa poisons and that
big lad gets acid in the face and screams in pain
but it turns out it was Bond’s urine sample
lotsa glass in the back offs the big lad

that was good

Bond’s boss ain’t happy
calling Bond out on his shit even though he didn’t do owt this time

hey up, we’re off at a missile test now
the fake eye guy is there — Jack Petachi
he goes wandering and starts doing somet I guess he shouldn’t be
he whips out his presidential cornea
ah, so with that, he’s changed up the test missiles they were using for the real thing
gotcha

missile gets dropped from a plane
couple of ’em actually

Jack Petachi gets congratulated by the French lass for a job well done
and then she chucks a snake in his car and causes him to crash through the wall of a building
he’s deed
she blows him up a bit more anyways
rescues her snake before of course
that was brilliant

missiles are still gaan
starting to dip though
lotsa beeping from radars and that
bit annoying
a boat sends out a team to go get ’em as they dip into the ocean
one of the radar men, Kovacs, connects to a guy in a chopper who says to kill ’em or somet

now we’re watching white cat man do a vlog
he tells ’em that the WMD’s now belong to SPECTRE
they’ll give ’em back for a fair bit of dollah

with all the commotion, Bond’s boss is told to get the double-0’s back out in the field

we find one of the bad guys
Maximillian Largo — he’s been in charge of the evil operation
Bond does some research on him
Then we see Largo landing his chopper and hopping onto his boat

Bond, M, and some bloke try to talk through what could have happened but when Bond puts forward a false eye hypothesis, M tells him to get real

Largo sits in his lab but then puts some funky music on andspies on a dance studio he’s got on his boat apparently
there’s a lad and lass havin a good stretch and dance

Largo then goes in to see ’em and the lass is happy to see him
he got her a necklace with the arabic inscription ‘The Tears of Allah’
romantic

he gives her a little cute threat and then leaves her to it

Bond’s at the shooting range and then a new Q rocks up with an explodey pen that decimates one of the targets
His name’s Algernon
he’s had his budget slashed
trying to get a motorbike toy working
Algernon gets him a laser watch
he’s happy to see Bond and the double-0 system back up and running
Algernon asks for gratuitous sex and violence
not personally

Bond jets off the The Bahamas
immediately gets hit on
then feckin Rowan Atkinson comes running after him
Right, I haven’t seen this since I was aboot 5, and I had no idea Johnny English and James Bond teamed up
he plays Nigel Small-Fawcett of the British embassy

Nigel gives Bond the low-down
tells him Largo hangs out at Bluebeard Reef doin a bit of marine biology
Bond tells him to jog on and he goes about hiding behind stuff to get away

At a bar, Bond spies a gymnast water-skier
gets splashed by her and she then gives her a dirty look
she speeds onto land and into Bond’s arms
her name is Fatima Blush
she got James all wet but his martini’s still dry

they won’t stop shaking hands

i think it’s the french lass
it looks very similar to her

anyway, she shows him the ‘best fishing waters’
they do a bit of light flirting on the boat out
bit of banter about oral sex
she gets her baps out
well, just one actually
that’s enough for sex though
we get a few shots of it n’all
there’s a weird transition of them doing it, then sliding away and into the water where they’re then diving

She places somet on his oxygen tank
sweet sax throughout all this
they come across a shipwreck
Bond goes in, she leaves
a like, remote control shark comes rocking up, chasing the thing attached to Bond’s tank
Bond swims into the boat
shark follows
Bond fire extinguishes the shark
but there’s another
he shuts the door on it with a nice ‘boop’
but the sharks are milling
AND ONE BREAKS THROUGH
Bond legs it
squares up to one
and then chops down the shipwreck’s mast, trapping it
he sees the tracker on the shark and then finds his own
a shark then literally nudges his breather out and he dumps his tank and the tracker, allowing him to swim to safety
he hooks himself on a fishing line
the one that belongs to the woman who flirted with him as soon as he got to The Bahamas
cos she said ‘I’LL CATCH YOU LATER’ HA
this film is funny

creepy street festival ensues
Fatima Blush is having a dance but spies Bond on the other lasses’ boat
he is wearing a striking pair of dungarees
lovely

Fatima goes to a hotel and dances her way up the stairs
Then places a bomb under Bond’s bed
she’s got nice pants
costume designers doing a great job
Bond and the boat lady go up to his room
the bomb is ticking
AND
the phone rings
Nigel calls Bond
tells Jimmy that Largo’s boat is heading for the South of France
THE BOMB GOES UP
but Bond and boat lady made the right choice in going to her room
So Fatima thinks Jimmy is deed
and off we go to France, I guess

NICE
the place in France
a French lady accosts Bond and tells him that his villa is ready — a villa overlooking the bay and Largo’s boat

JESUS
right, Felix is outside the airport and ambushes Bond by shouting and hurling something at him
do that outside an airport these days and you’ll get arrested
So we’ve got Bond, Felix Leiter and this French lass called Nicole
Nicole also gave Bond that pen Algernon was using earlier and the keys to the motorbike he was banging on about

Bond tells Felix to ‘forget the soup’ and focus on a dancing lady on Largo’s boat
the dancing lady is called Domino Petachi
easier to say than Kim Basinger
Domino is Jack’s brother
so she don’t know her boyfriend, Largo, pretty much killed her bro

Domino goes into town for a wander
Bond emerges from behind a tree to follow her
Domino goes to a spa
Bond goes as well and gets hit on

Bond enters the pool area where he is surrounded by bikini-clad young women and he is wearing white chinos and a clunky ass jumper with a pair of scissors embroidered onto it
or a big ‘M’, I can’t quite tell
but he’s the only dude there and no-one can take their eyes off him
oh right, he’s posing as a masseusse, fair enough
Domino is getting a massage and Bond is getting an eyeful
she lets slip that Largo is throwing a fundraiser at a casino that evening
she wants Bond to go ‘lower’
the real masseusse comes in and tells her that the other fella don’t work there

Nicole gives Bond a ride to the casino
hang on, Fatima’s there, listening in
so she knows that Bond’s alive
she’s getting annoyingly good and bad at her job

the bouncer tries to stop Bond from charging in but Bond socks him in the gut and goes ahead
classic move

the bouncer had a gun
Bond hands the bouncer a bomb that can’t be moved and locks him in a cupboard

Bond dumps the bouncer’s gun in a champagne bucket
then he spies Domino
the woman, not the game
He keeps an eye on her
follows her
she goes into a room full of arcade games
played by folk in evening gowns and tuxes
it looks neat
Bond accosts her at a game of Gravitar

they go for a drink

Fatima and Largo are lurking, mind
Largo has an especially close eye on things

Largo accuses Fatima of bungling her attempts on purpose so she can have Bond
then Fatima flirts with Largo

Domino is waiting for her bro to come visit
so Largo interrupts and invites Bond to play a game
it’s called Domination
it is a computer game
built into an ornate wooden table
just gotta laser beam regions of a country and avoid getting nuked

Spain’s the first round
Bond’s slow at first, with Largo lasering everything faster
loser gets an electric shock
Japan is the next round
Largo wins again
the further the levels go, the shock voltage goes up
next round, USA
tense this one
Red’s ‘danger level’ goes up
Bond falls off his chair in pain
Largo calls off the game having won $58,000 off Bond
But Bond wants one last game for the rest of the world
Domino is pensive
But Largo will go ahead
the last round is just all the rest of the world
Fatima is watching on
Bond’s winning
blocks Largo’s nukes
Largo’s about thelose when he forfeits by getting up from the table
Largo seems fine but runs off
Bond gets a dance with Domino out of it
they dance a lovely tango

During the tango, Bond tells Domino about the link between her brother and Largo
and that her bro’s dead
Largo tells Fatima to off Bond once and for all
she dances down some more stairs

Largo stops the tango and invites Bond to lunch
Tells Domino that Jack has been ‘delayed’

Bond goes to collect what turns out to be a cigarette case off that bouncer

and back to the villa
Bond nibs into a bit of fruit than hears some noises around the place
the balcony door is open
Bond shelves the apple and pulls his gun
Nicole is dead in her bed
drowned somehow
i think it was a water bed

Some lively bass starts up and Bond chases a cackling Fatima outta there
he unsheathes the motorbike and he’s away after her
slides under a truck but loses sight of her, keeps gaan though
through the side streets, doon the steps
finds her again
on her tail

Fatima tells all the other agents to leave him alone cos she wants him
she traps him in a tunnel and he gets shepherded into the back of a truck
but as they’re closing it, he ramps off it and escapes
lack of music maks this a bit weird

some goons chase him down but he rocket boosts away, causing them to crash into one another
Fatima speeds off again

Bond pursues Fatima into an old boathouse
And she knocks him off his bike
then holds him at gunpoint
Bond slides his gun over
she tells him to spread his legs
she gives him a lil speech
about how she’s the best lover in the world
i love this

Bond says somet about how she was gonna be number one in his memoirs and she wants him to write that down on a piece of scrap paper
extraordinary
She tells Bond what to write
but Bond has that explosive pen dunnee
well it shoots her anyways — but she seems okay
then it ignites and she goes up like the 5th of November

the cops are knocking about
and Leiter was apparently watching the whole thing
but he’s not with the cops, just milling
Leiter and Bond escape in their underwear, pretending to be exercisers
then some Frasier music hits and they’ve gone diving
what a natural sequence
love it

Bond sneaks onto a boat, but Leiter is locked out
racist boat
Bond slowly emerges from a hatch and gets welcomed by an awaiting dressing gown
The boat is obvs Largo’s
Domino’s about n’all

Largo invites Bond for a vodka martini as Leiter gets back to shore
Largo shows Bond his control room
tells Bond he’s in oil

then gives Bond a chance to mill before lunch

a stern butler leads Bond to his cabin
Domino tries to get his attention as he goes
Bond meets her in the dance studio
he puts music on
Largo has another watch of what’s going on
but he can’t turn the music on without them knowing he’s listening in
so he can’t hear owt
she tells him a lot abot The Tears of Allah and the necklace

Bond tells Domino he’s gonna kiss her to provoke a reaction from Largo
but also cos he’s gonna enjoy it
Largo bursts in, but they’ve gone
Domino sets off the fire alarm
there are a lot of annoying beeps in this film

Largo can’t hear it cos of the music in the studio
with the evacuation, Bond can sneak into Largo’s secret control room
Largo grabs an axe and smashes up the studio
Bond watches him do it
he hears the alarm when he axes the record player

Bond sends out an SOS code to MI6 telling them where Largo’s heading
North Africa

a place called Palmyra

so now we’re at a point where Largo doesn’t wanna let on that he knows Bond and Domino were making out cos then she’d know he was spying
and he can’t know Bond and Domino were behind the ruckus either

they head in to the Palmyra estate

Largo has his goons take Bond away anyway
then he grabs a jade statue and gives it to Domino as a ‘wedding present’
Domino says she hates him, Largo forcefully kisses her
She drops the statue
he is being weird
starts whistling and talking slow
a man with an umbrella leads Domino onto a pyre that she gets tied to
Bond is in a dungeon with a few vultures
Largo comes in to gloat
Bond asks him where he hid the bombs
Largo tells him one
for some reason
then he says ‘bye’ and leaves

Largo pops down to where Domino is tied and plays some nice classical music for her
Bond uses his laser watch to escape

Largo heads off
a load of horses come running in
with folk on ‘em
they surround Domino’s pyre
and kinda just talk about her
oh, i think it’s an auction

Largo boards his boat

the guards can’t see Bond
the bars of the window are broken
Bond hosses a guard out of it
then hides and ducks and punches his way outside

Bond trips up a horse to knock out the rider and nicks it and Domino
but the gates come down on their escape
they ride around and the goons just clumsify themselves into letting them out
still a lot running after them though
for a couple on a horse, they’re coping well
they’re riding around the battlements
so Bond jumps the horse into the ocean below
RIP Horse
they keep getting shot at but ge to a little rowing boat
oh, the horse is okay

HEY, MI6!
they found the co-ordinates and start blowing shit up
Bond and Domino get rescued and they tell Leiter the first bomb’s in Washington (D.C.)

aboard a sub, Bond and Domino have a shower
Apparently, Domino and Bond are in love

We get told via radio transmission that the first bomb has been defused and that they’ve got five hours to defuse the second
M offers Bond lunch at his club if he can get the second one

the sub approaches a boat, but there’s nothing moving on board
so why did Largo dock it there?
Bond asks for the necklace Largo got Domino
it’s a map
that shows the edges of the oil fields
if the bomb hits them, it could trigger a chain reaction of destruction

the sub detects underwater activity
Largo’s men are on the move
Bond finds an underground river on the map, deduces that’s where they all headin

the sub fires missiles, get this, with men inside
it launches them up and then they kinda jetpack down to get an aerial view before they land
i’ve no idea what the advantage is

they land safely on land, and then go back underwater very calmly
like an afternoon snorkel
then the tense music kicks in

Leiter and Bond follow Largo’s men, who’re setting up shop in the cave
Largo’s with ‘em
and that Kovacs guy from before

Felix and Jimmy loudly sneak up on the proceedings

the cave is like an Egyptian tomb
Bond is clambering about it apparently totally unseen

Largo and Kovacs are on the phone to SPECTRE HQ, who’re already celebrating
Kovacs is looking nervous though
and Bond is seeing an opportunity for sabotage

the wire holding the bomb is being suspended from a monument and Bond kicks the head off it
Felix downs two goons
Bond immediately drops his gun and Felix downs two more
Bond hides and runs
Felix is out of ammo
the rest of the CIA is here though and we got a gunfight in a tomb

Largo drags the bomb through and tries to get things moving
the bomb is armed and it floats down into the tunnels, guided by Largo
Bond jumps from a height to try and join it
as he tries to go after it, the cave caves in, so he just gotta escape noo
he gets behind the CIA guys and tries to head Largo off
The CIA blind the rest og the bad guys and gun them down

Bond gets outside and hangs from a chopper before dropping down a well to try and get to Largo
Bond nearly gets blinded by Largo’s headlights
but avoids being run over and the two scrap
Largo pulls a knife
Bond runs
the bomb’s on autopilor
so Bond stabs it
smart
it works, mind
turns the bomb around and then Bond traps Largo, sending the bomb into him
But Largo pulls the harpoon from the side and is about to shoot Bond when Domino and the rest of the CIA turn up — Domino harpoons Largo, killing him deed

the bomb is disarmed and away we go

Domino’s having a good swim
in a pool this time
leapord bikini
not leapord print, it’s got a picture of a leopard on it

instead of a martini, he grabs a cheeky cocktail
someone sneaks in the garden gates
Bond investigates
someone’s sneaking through the bushes
Bond yanks him out and shoves him in the pool

It’s Nigel

M wants Bond back
Bond says ‘Never’
Domino says ‘Never?’

Never

credits

well shit, i always thought that film sucked cos it weren’t ‘official’, but that was pretty tight
song ain’t my cup of tea though
the bit where she says Never Say Never Again is fine though
just fine, mind

the credits are longer which is nice, erryone getting their name in lights

and that’s that

so i guess

FIN

— —

Keep it streets ahead,

C.L.R.