Bond films weren't vanilla action movies, but they may have turned into that since the rest of the industry caught up. Still to this day, the underwater finale of Thunderball is astonishing. The thing is Bond films lost a lot of their luster when set designer Ken Adam stopped working on them. Even his last, Moonraker (an entry of the series I have warmed up to a lot, actually great fun), has some awesome sets (Drax secret space base with his weird perspectives) and top notch SFX. I like the franchise but honestly if you do not have the bug for it there's like 7 or 8 entries tops really worth it nowadays and none beyond Moonraker in 1979.