Yet another made-for-TV espionage thriller – after the recently-viewed ONCE UPON A SPY, also with Christopher Lee, and S*H*E* (both 1980) – with an even more comical and juvenile bent, considering that the "Brain" of the title is no more than a whizz kid of 10! Lee dispensed with his moustache for this one but not his wicked ways – he plays an ex-Nazi bent on retrieving a sunken fortune in rare coins. The hero, then, is the typical luxury-loving womanizer whose penchant for impromptu karate sessions with his Oriental manservants is also straight out of some Inspector Clouseau vehicle!; his abode, then, is not unlike the Bruce Wayne manor minus the Batcave, faithfully overseen by a long-suffering butler/chef whose recipes continually go unappreciated!
The director had made the impressive horror thriller DARK INTRUDER (1965), a failed TV pilot subsequently released to theaters; this one feels like it had the same intent and, likewise, was not picked up for a series! The film is not terrible per se, but neither is it especially engaging or memorable – though Lee's commitment to his roles in even such substandard fare is indeed admirable (incidentally, as in AN EYE FOR AN EYE {1981}, he gets to express befuddlement at his opponents' sheer resilience but, given that he had previously left them tied up at the mercy of a time-bomb, this reaction is perhaps understandable here!). As expected, the protagonist has any number of females crossing his path, be they colleagues, clients or criminals; also on hand is ill-fated child actress Heather O'Rourke, soon to briefly attain fame in the same year's POLTERGEIST.
