Amph 60+ Years of James Bond 007

I feel much the same as drg4. The plot tries to be realistic, but then can't resist having all the silly trimmings. It doesn't help that I saw this in the cinema when it first came out, and it just happened to be the movie I saw after Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

Does Judi Dench count as a Bond Girl? I love that old woman. How about Bibi? She's fun. Fatima Blush?

Oh well. Maybe I like the henchmen more than the main villains; Jaws, Locke, Fatima.

 

The Man With The Golden Gun

I've never understood why this one has seen as one of the lesser entries amongst the Moore era. To me it's an absolute highlight. I found the pacing to be quite effective in the way he went from point A to B to C. The Man With The Golden Gun gave the 007 series a more noir feel which had been lacking in the films that preceded it. I'm especially happy with how everything was kept mostly to a minimum in that they avoided having the showdown being too epic. The suspense was just captivating. But, it is one of the best villains so it's no surprise that Christopher Lee breathed charisma into the film so effortlessly.

I love this film.

5 out of 5

RANKING

1. From Russia With Love

2. The Man With The Golden Gun

3. Thunderball

4. Goldfinger

5. Diamonds are Forever

6. Dr. No

7. Live and Let Die

8. You Only Live Twice

9. On Her Majesty's Secret Service

 

I also love TMWTGG as well, I just didn't want to incur the wrath of the crazies in here. Ender_Sai is a weirdo...

 

The whistle on the jump! Hai Fat! It was horrible, dp. For shame.

 

I'm just kind of amazed that they restrained themselves from introducing Hai Fat's business partner, Lo Fat.* James Bond could be attacked by sumo wrestlers and grab onto the ass of one, only to be knocked out by a trident-wielding midget wearing only a mask and loincloth, but Hai Fat and Lo Fat? That's just too far over the line. The creative minds in those offices worked in weird ways.

*Actual idea they were considering.

 

This movie was very good despite the really bizarre inclusions of slapstick such as the hockey rink fight. God that was painful to watch.

 

Yeah. A bunch of guys in hockey uniforms come right up to Bond. If any of them had had a gun or knife or actual weapon, he would have been dead. Instead, they all bump up against him, skate away, and then come back and start hitting him with sticks and trying to stick him with their skates. GENIUS PLAN.

 

Octopussy (1983)

Behind the scenes

The next film got its title from a different short story collection, Octopussy and The Living Daylights. It was mostly an original story, however, with the plot of the short story Octopussy used as part of the character Octopussy's backstory, and Property of a Lady used as the basis for one scene. George MacDonald Fraser, the writer of the Flashman novels, was hired to work on the script, though Maibaum and Wilson produced the final version. John Glen returned as director.

Once again, Roger Moore wasn't under contract. He had been thinking seriously about leaving the franchise after FYEO. EON looked at Dalton again, and screen-tested James Brolin, still having failed to realize that an American Bond would be a disaster. One thing got in the way: Sean Connery was returning as Bond. Not in an EON production, but in Never Say Never Again, made using Kevin McClory's rights to Thunderball. Already concerned about going up against the original Bond, they were even warier of doing while introducing a brand-new Bond. They made it a priority to get Moore back, and they did.



For the Octopussy role, as the film was set in India, they wanted an Indian actress. There weren't many in Hollywood, and those that existed weren't cast. The search expanded to white women who could pass as Indian. Half-Nicaraguan Barbara Carrera was approached, but ditched EON to work with Connery in NSNA. Finally, Broccoli returned to Maud Adams, who had already played a major Bond girl in The Man with the Golden Gun, and the Swedish Adams forced them to drop the idea that Octopussy was Indian. Nothing stopped the producers from casting Frenchman Louis Jourdan as Afghan prince Kamal Khan, however.

With Bernard Lee's death, a new M was needed. Robert Brown was cast. He had previously played Admiral Hargreaves in The Spy Who Loved Me, and due to the flexible continuity of the Bond series and the fact that his name is never mentioned, it's not clear if Brown's M is the same character as Lee's M, Admiral Hargreaves in a new job, or a new character altogether. Lois Maxwell returned as Moneypenny, though the new character Penelope Smallbone was introduced as her assistant, obviously with the possibility of replacing the 56-year-old Maxwell's Moneypenny in the future. Smallbone, however, was never seen again after her introduction.

EON got Octopussy out ahead of Never Say Never Again, and beat it in the box office battle, though not necessarily in critical consensus.

Plot

009, dressed as a clown for no reason the film finds worth explaining, runs off from the circus and gets mortally wounded by knife-throwing assassins, but manages to stagger into the embassy in East Berlin with a Fabergé egg. MI6 examines the egg and finds it's a fake of one about to come up for auction at Sotheby's; they suspect the Soviets are selling it to raise funds for some nefarious pursuit. 007 is sent to the auction, swaps the fake egg for the real one, and engages in a bidding war with Kamal Khan to drive up the price and flush out Khan as the Soviet agent, forced to buy back the egg now that the fake isn't available.



Bond goes to Khan's home in India, where he lets Khan know that he has the real egg. Khan's agents attack Bond, and, when that doesn't work, Magda, a girl working with him sleeps with 007 and steals the egg on her way out. Khan's men then capture Bond. The theft is part of Bond's plan, and the bug in the egg lets him listen in and realize that the Soviet General Orlov is working in secret to finance a plan to expand the USSR's control over Western Europe, and Khan is his agent. Bond escapes and, researching Magda's tattoo, heads to the palace of Octopussy, a jewel smuggler who runs some sort of feminist octopus cult and also a circus because they need to make this plot work and justify that name somehow. Octopussy has been in business with Khan, smuggling the stolen Russian artifacts Khan is selling to fund Orlov and their fake replacements back and forth via her German circus. Octopussy is also the daughter of a corrupt British official Bond was sent to arrest, but rather than resenting him, she admires him for letting her father take his own life rather than suffer the ignominy of trial and imprisonment. Bond and Octopussy start a relationship, and Bond again evades Khan's assassins.

Octopussy has tipped off Bond to her next meeting with Khan, so he shows up in East Germany and infiltrates the circus. He observes Orlov place a nuclear bomb aboard the circus train, set to explode at the US Air Force base in West Germany where the circus will be performing. The explosion will be chalked up as the result of an American nuclear device going off accidentally, and the Soviet general is convinced that the anti-nuclear lobby will succeed in getting the West to voluntarily disarm itself in response to the tragedy, letting the nuclear USSR roll over Europe. Bond gets on the circus train, chased by Orlov, who is shot trying to cross the border. Bond kills the twin knife-throwing act that murdered 009, but is knocked off the train. He chases it by car, and in his haste to get inside the base and at the ticking bomb, he has to disguise himself as a clown. He creates a giant scene as he tries to get at the bomb in the middle of the circus act, but eventually convinces Octopussy that she was betrayed by Khan and Orlov, and they both deactivate the bomb.



Bond, Q, Octopussy, her smuggling cult, and her goddamn circus then attack Khan's Indian compound, to which he has escaped. Khan and his main henchman escape in a plane with Octopussy as a captive. Bond grabs on, has a fight on top of the plane, and rescues Octopussy. Khan dies when the plane hits a cliff.

Bond himself

Moore is ridiculously old now. I actually didn't recognize him at all when he first appeared. After the Connery-style FYEO, Moore is back well inside his comfort zone here, never called upon to display Bond's coldness. It's pure heroic gentleman from here on out, the unchallenging camp-hero figure Moore has always wanted to play, but by this point Moore appears to be largely sleepwalking through the role. The further Moore goes into his comfort zone, the more rote it gets, and the fact that he was already ready to get out means that he's basically checked out of the series, much like late-period Connery.

How it fits into the series

Moore's last two movies settled well into his comfort zone: bland, boring Bond formula, fully neutered of any edge to the character, stocked up with random outrageous camp. Octopussy is paint-by-numbers Moore Bond, the series at a creative and energetic low point. After the bold throwback of FYEO, the more-of-the-same approach to Bond is especially disappointing.



As far as the bigger picture, the introduction of Robert Brown's M is the only really significant development I can think of. Brown would play M in four films, giving him, of the three Ms -- not counting Ralph Fiennes's just-beginning career -- the shortest run, three films and eleven years shorter than Judi Dench's.

Review

Surely the most undistinguished Bond yet. Other Bond movies have been this dull and uninvolving – I never really cared what 007 was doing in Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, or Moonraker, either. But they at least offered the entertainment factor of moments of vivid insanity, letting you laugh as they went off the rails. Despite a climax in which a circus collectively storms a castle, Octopussy lacks that bad-wow factor. It's got a handful of nutty moments, but most of the time it just feels like it's on autopilot, with the increasingly geriatric Moore coasting through a likewise geriatric film. It has a total absence of energy, giving it an overwhelming feeling of blandness.



There are some things I liked. Roger Moore with a fake mustache tickled me to no end. The central idea of the plot wasn't bad at all – again, we see some concentration on the Cold War, with dissension within the Soviet ranks giving rise to our villain, with his scheme to take advantage of the West's weak stomach to manipulate it into effectively voluntary surrender, which isn't all that farfetched for a Bond-villain plot. Also, Q got to be amusing. That is the extent of my positive notes for this film.

Now, the negatives. The pre-credits scene had nothing to do with anything, and got to display the series in full gutless Moore form, as Bond levels a captured gun at a pair of soldiers in a vehicle alongside him . . . and then shoots out their tires so they crash HILARIOUSLY into a chicken coop. Yeah, turn the action into a weak gag. Just like ending the nifty little mini-plane sequence with Bond rolling up to a gas station and making a lame crack. Everything that might be cool or badass has to be undermined and turned into a gag. Just like the murder of 009. The first onscreen death of a 00 agent should be exciting, compelling, awesome. Instead it's a lame, surrealistic scene of a clown running through the woods. A fight between two groups in side-by-side cars turns into halfassed physical comedy. Bond being hunted in the jungle big-game style just becomes a vehicle to get him to swing on a vine with a dubbed-in Tarzan yodel.



The finale should theoretically be good – it's a tense chase, with Bond trying to catch up with this nuclear bomb and keep it from going off. But it's too dumb to work. From Bond's too-cute car-on-rails bit, to hiding in a gorilla suit, to running through the circus dressed as a clown screaming about a bomb, it's dumb instead of exciting. Bruce Boa is reduced from playing General Rieekan to General Man-Child in a totally stupid bit of writing. But the worst is the entire set-up: why are the villains cutting it so close when they know they've got a nuclear bomb about to go off? What compels Khan to stick around and go to the circus, just so he can excuse himself and hope he's out of range in time? Why does Bond suck so badly at stopping a bomb? A woman gets into the phone booth just before him, and he needs to stop a nuclear bomb from exploding, so he . . . doesn't grab her by the shoulders and pull her out, or even run to find another phone, he just . . . acts exasperated and drives off. His one shot at warning the authorities is gone forever! And then we get a second climax, where a bunch of circus performers storm a fortress and Bond arrives by hot-air balloon and apparently there's a trapeze hanging in midair somehow so that the circus performers can be all circusy as they fight guards. It's so, so awful, but considering the fact that a circus is on the attack, it's still not as silly-entertaining as it ought to be. It falls short in every dimension. Anticlimax followed by one of the lamest Bond-gets-the-girl final scenes yet.



The villains aren't that interesting – the Soviet general has an intriguing plan, but almost no presence in the film, and just comes off as a third-rate bug-eyed maniac when he is onscreen. Jourdan is not credible as an Afghan, and the movie never seems all that interested in how or why Orlov, Kamal Khan, and Octopussy are working together. It's a slapdash collection of villains rather than a compelling set of relationships. Octopussy herself is just lame as a character, someone who's thrown in with the villains, but actually she's perfectly nice to Bond and she likes him and there's never any tension at all. The whole scene where they meet is completely dead – neither of them even seem interested in the situation. Their relationship is incoherent as a whole.

The other characters don't fare much better. Desmond Llewelyn is awesome and nothing shall be said against him. Otherwise, Vijay is just kind of okay. He's there and he's some tennis star trying to act, and he's not terrible but you never really care that he exists. Penelope Smallbone is probably the most pointless character ever, introduced in one scene and then completely dropped. They were obviously trying to introduce the next Moneypenny as insurance for the fact that Lois Maxwell was aging right along with Moore, but wow, did that go nowhere. I'm also not totally sold on the new M. It's not the best movie to show him off overall, but after the solidity of Lee, who was a perfect authority figure, Brown's skinny, bald, beetle-browed look makes him look more like the villainous grumpy uncle in a children's film or something, and the film never makes a great effort to establish him solidly in the role. Brown grows on me in later films, but Octopussy doesn't make the transition from Lee easier.



Octopussy just isn't a good film. It's dull, by-the-numbers, and completely unable to absorb me as a viewer at any point. It's bad, but without even having the decency to be bad in a spectacular, enjoyable way. Is a watchable disaster better than an unwatchable mediocrity? I'm not sure, but I am sure Octopussy is unwatchably mediocre.

Rankings

1. From Russia with Love
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Dr. No
4. For Your Eyes Only
5. The Spy Who Loved Me
6. Goldfinger
7. Thunderball
8. You Only Live Twice
9. The Man with the Golden Gun
10. Diamonds Are Forever
11. Octopussy
12. Live and Let Die
13. Moonraker

 

I think this is the only bond film I've only seen once, I've never been motivated to sit through it a second time. "Dull" sums it up perfectly.

 

Bond has sex with the resurrected zombie corpse of Maude Adams late of The Man with the Golden Gun.

From there the picture spirals down hill.

 

Once again Havac hits every single point. I'm left to point that the twin knife-throwers are played by a time travelling Shia LaBeouf in a jewfro:




1. From Russia with Love
2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
3. Goldfinger
4. For Your Eyes Only
5. Dr. No
6. The Spy Who Loved Me
7. You Only Live Twice
8. Thunderball
9. The Man with the Golden Gun
10. Octopussy
11. Diamonds Are Forever
12. Live and Let Die
13. Moonraker

 

Thanks for confirming that Spain uses a QWERTY based keyboard.

 

I think it looks more like young, jewfro Mark Wahlberg, honestly.

 

No, it's Shia.

I loved this film as a kid. Enough said.

 

Come on, Bond dresses up as a goddamn clown in the climax and no one has anything to say?

Okay, I guess maybe stunned silence is the most appropriate response.

 

Bond in clown makeup is a perfect summary of everything terrible about Roger Moore's run.

 

Actually... I don't mind that scene that much. It's ridiculous, yes, but at least there's an element of tension with the nuke about to go off and the only man that knows it dressed up as a clown. Considering the blandness of most Moore!Bond moments, this is almost refreshing.

 

'Octopussy' is a great Bond film, a fun adventure which is why I think Roger Moore is one of the Bonds you can watch easily to ecape reality for a couple of hours.

Plus, the late great Richard LeParmentier (Admiral Motti) also appeared in this film, in the US/German circus tent at the end of the film in the airbase with the words "I'm sure the General will get a big blast out of this!", seated yards away from a nuclear bomb!

 

Not really stunned silence. More just, well, what is there to say? Sort of speaks for itself, really.

 

A middle-of-the-pack entry, to be sure.

Still, there is a priceless villain moment: Khan and his henchman are leaving the soon-to-be-atomized circus, only to find their getaway car won't start. The look on their faces is perfect. The Bond series could have used more character moments like that.

 

That's nothing compared to when he's hiding in the gorilla suit, and checks his friggin' watch.

Then manages to get out of the suit with the bad guys standing RIGHT THERE.

I mean, like .... what the frakk???!?!?!

 

My take on Ocotopussy is as follows:


Moore's last good 007 film. It's a relatively straightforward spy story which, while sprinkled with a bit of light-hearted silliness, does justice to the Fleming story on which it is directly based. Louis Jourdan is superb as the villain, and the climax with Octopussy's bevy of female assassins kicking all kinds of ass is a Bond fan's wet dream.

Octopussy is a sight better than Man with the Golden Gun and Live and Let Die. It's the early Moore films that are the problem; the later, Glen-directed ones (except View to a[n Over]Kill) are his best.


By and large I don't like the Moore films, as I consider them rather silly when I prefer a grittier take. Octopussy is quite good in spite of a few groan-inducing moments (the tiger sitting on command, the tennis-ball sound the tennis rackets make when used as bludgeons, the vehicular crocodile, etc.). On the plus side, the Indian locations and the stolen Faberge-egg plot are wholly engaging, the title character's switch from villainess to heroine is very satisfying, and the climactic assault by a bevy of acrobatic female assassins is to die for! All in all a fine contribution to the franchise.

 

See, I disagree with all of that. Jourdan is a complete void. The climax is pure silliness that isn't even entertaining; it's just wearying. The Indian locations are dully shot, and mostly they're bad soundstages -- Octopussy completely fails to take advantage of the visual vibrancy India has to offer. The Faberge egg is a McGuffin that doesn't go anywhere -- the auction scene is minimally interesting, but the egg certainly doesn't do anything to elevate the movie. And Octopussy's "switch" is a nightmare of incoherency. Octopussy is working with Khan for no particular reason, but she likes Bond even though he's trying to shut down her operation, and he thinks she's swell, and Moore and Adams have absolutely no chemistry or interest in the existence of the other. Then Khan sends some assassins into her palace, and she fights them, and then she goes right back to working for Khan, and Bond wanders off, and has to get her to realize that Khan is setting her up to be killed before she actually turns on him. It's just an incoherent mismash of absolutely nobody caring about anything that happens. It's the central nexus of dullness in the entire film.

 

I remember Octopussy getting rather favorable reviews when it came out. When finally saw it, I couldn't for the life of me figure why it was viewed favorably.

It's not even even that it's a bad movie, the way Moonraker is. But 2 of the last 3 had been about as good a s Moore Bond could be. If Octopussy had come along before, I might look at it more favorably, like TSWLM. But by the time it came along, it was time to move on. That the producers went back to Moore again for AVTAK is inexplicable.