Best Bond? The Spy Who Loved Me Might Well Be It!

The Good: Decent acting, Overall plot, Moments of character, Some good lines
The Bad: Very typical plot progression for a James Bond movie
The Basics: James Bond goes toe to toe with his Soviet equivalent in The Spy Who Loved Me, which ends up being a charming Bond movie without truly reinventing the franchise the way one might hope.


As I make my way through the entirety of the James Bond franchise, there was one Bond movie I was actually still legitimately excited about watching. In fact, the fact that I was eagerly anticipating watching The Spy Who Loved Me makes it almost inconceivable that I missed it when I was watching the films in order (I accidentally skipped it and watched Moonraker recently). Rectifying that mistake, I spent the cold afternoon watching the spy film and the movie actually lived up to being one of the better Bond movies.

Unfortunately, it was not actually all I had hoped for. My sense of anticipation came from the fact that The Spy Who Loved Me was based upon the book of the same name and that remains, to date, the only James Bond book I’ve ever read. The novel was one I read over two decades ago, yet there are elements of it that I remembered. I recall enjoying the fact that it was not told from the perspective of James Bond and, unfortunately, that led to some of the anticipation I had that went unfulfilled. The Spy Who Loved Me, despite giving Bond a Soviet sidekick/adversary, is very much a typical James Bond film. Unlike the book, where the female spy was the main protagonist, James Bond is very much the hero of The Spy Who Loved Me and Major Amasova is more of a supporting character.

Opening on a British submarine, the British navy is thrown into chaos when the nuclear sub loses power and goes missing. Moscow recalls its top spy and James Bond is recalled as well, narrowly averting death at the hands of thugs who ski after him. Bond and Agent XXX (the Russian spy who has just learned her fellow agent and lover has been killed) are both made aware of a submarine tracking system that has been put on the black market, a tracking system that has left both government’s vulnerable. When the villainous Karl Stromberg learns that a third party is selling the technology he had developed, Stromberg kills the developers and the traitor within his own organization. In Cairo, Bond learns of the middleman he has to go through to get to Stromberg. He is too late to get to the middleman at the Pyramids, but there he encounters Agent XXX (Major Amasova).

Both Bond and Amasova are hunting the same microfilm for their respective governments. To that end, they track Stromburg’s hired assassin Jaws (named for his powerful metal teeth that allow him to bite through virtually anything) across Egypt. After Bond returns to the secret facility in Egypt, having been betrayed by Agent XXX, he is informed that the KGB and British Intelligence are working together to recover their respective submarines. Partnered with one another, Bond and Amasova sublimate their ambitions and desire for revenge in order to aid their respective governments. Having learned that Stromberg is using his submarine laboratory to menace both governments, Bond and Amasova set out for Sardenia to stop him.

In The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore is completely comfortable and competent as James Bond. By this point, he owns the role; he is confident, charming and seems like a credible super spy in the film. He does not rely entirely on the gadgets Q provides, though they are present and help him survive, as one might suspect.

For all the talk a few years back about how Halle Berry was a whole new “Bond girl” and that Bond had finally met his match, it is hard not to look back and see her performance and character as derivative of Barbara Bach’s Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me. Bach has the articulation, poise and strength of character to be a completely credible female-version of James Bond. She is not the typical Bond “damsel in distress” and she is played by Bach to deliver her tongue-in-cheek quips with the same sense of charm as Moore. The potential gambit pays off: Barbara Bach steals her scenes in The Spy Who Loved Me and makes the viewer wish she were in more of the franchise. Bach is able to emote with her eyes that Amasova is scanning her “partner” and gleaning as much information as Bond typically does. Barbara Bach breathes some new life into a franchise that has become pretty stale by this point, even if she does not completely redefine it.

Karl Stromburg is a pretty typical James Bond villain; he is a millionaire industrialist who employs powerful dimwits (sadly, Jaws is a murderous thug who does not get much humanity or intelligence until Moonraker). His fabulous wealth makes it credible that he could employ the scientists needed to develop the sub-tracking technology and afford to have the laboratory where much of the action occurs built. Curg Jurgens makes the ocean-loving villain credible, despite the way he utilizes sharks, helicopters, and lionfish to kill his adversaries. Jurgens has a stern look to him that makes him seem particularly coldblooded.

Ultimately, The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the most engaging James Bond films. The fight scenes are good, the performances are decent and, despite the ultimate over-the-top plan of Stromburg, it remains one of the more grounded films in the James Bond franchise. If wanted to watch only one James Bond film with Roger Moore and get all the gadgets, car chases, and big-eyed Bond vixens, The Spy Who Loved Me might be the best, most substantive one to watch!

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live And Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun
Moonraker
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

8/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Science Fiction Bond: Moonraker Is An Unfortunate Departure!

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of plot
The Bad: Overall ridiculous plot, No real character development, Odd script issues.
The Basics: The James Bond franchise takes a flying leap into space with Moonraker, wherein Bond must defeat a billionaire’s plan to kill everyone on Earth and repopulate it with his select bimbos and beefcakes.


As the 1970s drew to a close, the obsession with outer space and science fiction reached one of its peaks in the United States. Following the success of Star Wars (reviewed here!), 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, it was clear to the major movie studios that science fiction films were important for retaining audiences and developing film franchises. The James Bond franchise was not immune to the effect of the influence of the blockbusters; seeking to keep its audience, Moonraker was produced and the fantastic nature of the film sets it apart from the rest of the films in the James Bond franchise.

Moonraker puts James Bond in space under circumstances that are even more preposterous than the usual James Bond plotline. Bond villains, for those not familiar with the franchise, tend to be bent on world domination and/or profiting from the mass destruction of nations or industries. Moonraker takes it a step farther with a Bond villain bent on wiping out life on Earth and repopulating with his concept of what represents the best traits of humanity (all of whom are pretty thin, stereotypically beautiful, and supposedly smart - though genetic diversity does seem to be a priority, which is realistic). In order to sell the larger than life plot of the villain, Hugo Drax, the viewer is forced to accept premises such as a standing U.S. military space army, laser guns, a secretly-constructed space station, artificial gravity technology and a weaponized toxin made from one of the rarest flowers on Earth mass produced to a level that it could actually wipe out humanity. For the viewers who enjoyed any sense of realism in the spy thriller genre, Moonraker breaks with all conventions of the familiar and real and comes across as unfortunately absurd.

Opening with the Space Shuttle Moonraker being piggybacked on a 747, two men enter the shuttle and ignite its fuel, stealing the shuttle and destroying the plane. The theft prompts M to recall James Bond, who narrowly escapes an attempt on his life while in a small plane on his way home from his last mission. Bond is told the truth about the hijacking by M and given a dart gun by Q before being sent to California to visit Drax Industries, the manufacturer of the Moonraker shuttle. Drax, who is obsessed with the conquest of space, is insanely wealthy; his residence in California is a transplanted French castle and he immediately sets to making sure Bond fails in his mission to find the Moonraker. Drax’s assistant, Chang, attempts to kill Bond using the g-force centrifuge, though Bond survives with the help of his dart gun and the NASA scientist, Dr. Holly Goodhead.

Bond inadvertently follows Goodhead to Venice where he is investigating a subcontractor to Drax and where she is giving a speech. After surviving gondola chase, infiltrating a secret Drax laboratory and finally dispatching Chang, Bond discovers that Goodhead is a CIA agent tasked with the same mission as him. While trying to expose Drax’s secret lab, Bond is discredited and has to follow the trail of Drax Industries subcontractors to Rio De Janeiro on his own. When Q determines that a compound snuck out of Drax’s secret lab is a poison made from an ultra-rare orchid, Bond is vindicated and he and Goodhead infiltrate Drax’s secret shuttle fleet and space station, pursued by the assassin Jaws, to try to save the world from being poisoned and humanity killed.

Even more than a “more preposterous than usual” plotline, Moonraker is plagued by odd and obvious script problems. For example, when Bond reports in, his dialogue with Moneypenny is unusually fragmented. He tells Moneypenny about how he jumped out of a plane without a parachute, she tells him something else and they have a back and forth before he incredulously observes that she does not believe him about the plane jump. Sadly, that is not the only place in the movie where the dialogue seems stilted.

Moonraker features the return n The Spy Who Loved Me. Unlike the Louisiana sheriff being used in two James Bond movies, the reuse of Richard Kiel as the giant Jaws is far less annoying and helps tie the otherwise far-flung Moonraker back to the rest of the Bond franchise. Kiel is hired for his brawn and he is an exceptional match for Roger Moore.

The distinct guest star in Moonraker, though, is Lois Chiles as Dr. Goodhead. While the name might be absurd, the character is one of the more interesting Bond women. Goodhead spends the first half of the film clearly the equal of James Bond with a moral uncertainty that makes watching her character’s direction fun and interesting. While Michael Lonsdale’s Hugo Drax is instantly portrayed as evil and the actor is not given much in the way of range to play the role, Chiles excels because she gets through the excessive technobabble of Goodhead flawlessly – credibly establishing Goodhead as a smart enough woman to plausibly be both a NASA astronaut and a CIA agent. As well, she matches Roger Moore’s James Bond line for line with the wit and snappy comebacks one expects of James Bond. Her performance is more than just that of sex object (the objectified women – and, for a change, men – in Moonraker are relegated to Drax’s menagerie of repopulating personnel at the film’s climax).

Roger Moore does a fine job as James Bond, though Moonraker does not push his character forward in any meaningful or noteworthy ways to give him much new to do, save playing thoroughly exhausted following the centrifuge scene.

In all, Moonraker is preposterous – details like closing an airlock door differentiating between an area without gravity and one with is just silly – but it is pretty harmless entertainment that has the added benefit of being well-acted, if not superlative in any other way.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
You Only Live Twice
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live And Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

4.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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How Many Times Can Bond Be Killed In One Movie?! You Only Live Twice

The Good: Adequate acting, Generally good plot (from a conceptual standpoint)
The Bad: No character development whatsoever, Almost constant reversals get tiresome, Many of the special effects are cheesy, Craptastic editing.
The Basics: As part of a series of escalating reversals and assassinations, You Only Live Twice continues to raise the stakes in the James Bond universe into almost preposterous territory.


As I make my way through the James Bond films I am discovering that the franchise was faced with a problem that I did not recognize as a child. As a teenager, I loved the James Bond films and I recall You Only Live Twice being one of my favorites. Watching it now, though, I find myself catching so many of the problems with the movie – and not just the very clunky editing – that it is surprising I ever was impressed by it. The thing about You Only Live Twice is that it is the fifth cinematic outing in the James Bond franchise and by this point, in order to make the movie an interesting progression that goes beyond all that has come before, the story has to have more reversals and a plot that ups the ante beyond big business swindles, the attempt to destabilize currency and limited warfare through manipulations by secret organizations.

So, You Only Live Twice has a fundamentally absurd plot – an international comes out of nowhere with a fully refined and viable space program that effectively captures space vehicles from the United States and the Soviet Union – that has SPECTRE looking to start World War III for no particular reason. This was the last time Sean Connery played James Bond in a run of James Bond movies (he would return for two other movies between other actors playing Bond).

After the Jupiter 16 spacecraft is abducted in space by a mysterious craft, the Americans blame the Soviet Union while the cooler heads in Britain track the abducting craft to the Sea Of Japan. There, James Bond is working on finding which country launched the high tech ship when he is apparently killed in action. Sent to Japan after his funeral, James Bond meets with Henderson who is killed just before he can reveal who he thinks is behind the spacecraft abduction. Bond hops a ride in the assassin’s car which takes him to Osato Chemical where he steals from the company’s safe.

Delivered to Tanaka (The Tiger), he has the photograph he stole from the safe analyzed and when he returns to Osato, the head of the company tries to assassinate him. Trying to discover what Osato is up to, Bond arrives at the docks and is abducted by Osato’s ship the Ning-To. Escaping again, he is outfitted by Q with the most powerful mini-helicopter in the world and he goes to spy on a small island the Ning-To visited. When a Soviet spacecraft is abducted, Bond locates the villain’s secret lair and as the world moves closer to war, he works to expose and stop SPECTRE’s latest plot! In the process he disguises himself (poorly) as a Japanese man, marries, and essentially becomes a ninja while those around him die.

You Only Live Twice features James Bond taking on a Japanese persona that is utterly unconvincing in the make-up and the latter portion of the film is laughable for that conceit. In fact, given how it never becomes fundamentally important that Bond truly pose as a Japanese man, the effort to make him over is somewhat ridiculous. In fact, the only point to Bond’s deception in that regard seems to be to make it credible that he would become a ninja and be able to proficiently throw throwing stars.

That said, You Only Live Twice may contain one of the first references to the idea that the name James Bond is a code name for British intelligence agents (Bond’s new wife notes that he gave a false name in the marriage ceremony) and the fact that he gets married – even as part of a job – is an interesting twist. And Sean Connery does fine with the role, but the character does not evolve or develop beyond who he was in the past four films.

Unfortunately, director Lewis Gilbert is stuck in with a movie that relies on a preposterous number of reversals and sacrifices substance for extended action sequences. The first two-thirds of You Only Live Twice is pretty much a protracted sequence of murders, narrow escapes, captures, and chases in vehicles of various types. When the movie introduces the SPECTRE volcano base, there is an ironic slow down that takes the time to revel in the cleverness of the film’s villain, but by that point, it is hard not to find oneself laughing at the injection of piranha, a bicycle-like helicopter armed to the teeth and more women throwing themselves at James Bond than reason would suggest is possible for such an emotionally unavailable guy (one of his lovers is killed in one of the coolest and most imaginative ways and within days he is sleeping with another woman and flirting with her continually).

While Gilbert might get a pass on the lack of character development and the troublingly convoluted plot, but he should be held accountable for the terrible editing. Things like Bond’s fight with Hans are cut in such a way that are choppy and lack a sense of continuity to make the fight tense or even engaging.

In the final analysis, You Only Live Twice is not terrible, but it does illustrate that the James Bond franchise has to push toward the ridiculous in order to keep the franchise from feeling as stagnant as it actually is becoming.

For other James Bond films, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Goldfinger
Thunderball
Die Another Day
Casino Royale
Quantum Of Solace
Skyfall

5.5/10

For other movies, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the film reviews I have written!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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