Growing up in the 70s Roger Moore was my favorite Bond and this movie and MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN were my favorite Bonds— man how times change. This one is probably Moore’s best outing, but he’s still just not James Bond— he’s Roger Moore playing James Bond. This one is slicker than most of the other Bonds but it also has a hard time taking itself seriously. The scenes filmed in Egypt at night are really well done and the Henchman this time around is Richard Kiel as Jaws— who is a 7 foot tall metal toothed menace— but he’s sometimes played for laughs which doesn’t help. You wouldn’t find Oddjob in GOLDFINGER dropping a heavy block on his own foot.
Ringo Starr’s wife Barbara Bach is the Bond girl, in this case the Russian equivalent to 007 and she’s a horrible actress although I never noticed at the time. I also never noticed Moore’s womanizing which comes across as just plain creepy— maybe I got up and got popcorn during the love scenes, maybe it just went over my head completely— hey I was eleven.
The villain is an environmentalist who thinks it’s better to destroy the world and start over again. Maybe the Bond producers should consider the same thing, but it’ll take another thirty years (!) before they do.
An interesting development in the minor characters, Q who is in charge of coming up with the crazy weapons Bond uses seems to gain some real prominence as the series goes on, which makes little sense. He started as a working class guy in MI6 and now he’s standing with the highest ranking officials during top secret meetings.
Anyway, this is Moore’s best Bond film to date, and probably ever, there are rumors that one that is coming up in a few short years is better but I’ve never seen it so we’ll see how it plays out.
BOND will return in MOONRAKER
BOND: Moore is never going to be Connery, time to accept that the series is doing James Bond Lite. ****1/2
VILLAIN: Stromberg has a great voice but he’s not very threatening. ****
THEME SONG: You either like Carly Simon or you don’t- I don’t. **
HENCHMAN: Jaws could have been the best henchman of all time, it’s s pity they weren’t taking the series seriously anymore. ****
OVERALL BOND RATING: ****