We already know Roger Moore‘s James Bond loves a good ski chase, especially in the opening scenes, and this movie is no different – the opening ski chase here is as good as any, and it leads into the theme tune by Duran Duran which itself is as good as any Bond theme tune ever made. With good humour too, Eon Productions seem intent on sending off Roger Moore with a bang, in his last outing as James Bond. Naturally, Roger Moore delivers an excellent performance as usual.
The main antagonist in this movie, Max Zorin, is played very well by a young Christopher Walken, and his main muscle assistant called May Day is played by quite weirdly by Grace Jones. They both make a strong appearance in the first half hour. Aside from Grace Jones (whose I assume is a woman but wouldn’t bank on it) who stays on Zorin’s side until near the end; the main female in this movie is Tanya Roberts who quite well plays Stacey Sutton – a woman who James befriends after witnessing her being paid off by Zorin and then bumping into her again later on.
Bond’s assistant, Sir Godfrey Tibbett, is played very well by Patrick Macnee (who famously played John Steed in the action-packed 60s TV series The Avengers).
There’s a strong equine theme in this movie, so horse breeders and horse-racing enthusiasts should enjoy it more than most.
The sharp eyed among us may notice Dolph Lundgren shows his face for a second, as a KGB agent, when General Gogov (played quite well by Walter Gotell) confronts Max Zorin about his supposed unauthorised killing of 007. Dolph became a household face when he appeared as the main antagonist in Rocky IV, which was released just 4 months after A View To A Kill’s release in 1985 – on Bruce Lee’s birthday in fact, Nov 27.
Towards the end of this movie, they’ve attempted to bring back the outstanding humour of Clifton James as Sheriff JW Pepper, from Roger Moore’s first two Bond movies (Life And Let Die, and The Man With The Golden Gun), this time in the form of a police captain played by Joe Flood. Joe does an alright job, but he’s no Clifton James. In fact, he’s relatively deadpan.
The ending gets a bit monotonous for those who have seen it several times before, but it’s still generally well made throughout. The quality of this movie is generally pretty good – not quite on a par with Roger Moore’s best Bond movies (Live And Let Die, and The Spy Who Loved Me) for my taste, but it’s roughly in the running for joint third place. With a slightly better lead female, and better comedy from the police captain or someone else, plus a nice Bond car (which is completely lacking in this movie), and with a more dynamic ending, and perhaps better use of Patrick Macnee (who got killed off too early for my liking), it could have been up there with the best Bond movies of all time. But as it stands, I rate it on a par with most movies from the Connery and Moore eras – I rated most of them just OK.
Finally they’re catching on to the age of Miss Moneypenny and how it makes for uncomfortable viewing when James Bond flirts with her – in this episode they crack a joke about it, so it’s clearly a well understood issue by now.
Perhaps the strangest thing about this movie, aside from its ridiculously rude name, is how one of the main female characters (herself called Octopussy – the character who this movie was named after) is played by Maud Adams who was also one of the main women in The Man With The Golden Gun (1974). She’s just an average Bond girl so how she managed the lead gig in two separate Bond movies within the Roger Moore era I have no idea – it isn’t even due to anything in the storyline, since her character was killed off in The Man With The Golden Gun. I can only assume she’s either born into a very influential family, or has been doing all kinds of naughty favours for the relevant decisionmakers.
The last half hour of Octopussy is not a bad one. Bond stops an atomic bomb going off, which was organised by a rogue Russian general; and Octopussy (now on Bond’s side), with the help of her gang of circus women, raids the fortress of the guy who double-crossed her but she gets captures so James Bond rescues her. Still, having said that, it’s still probably one of the weaker Bond movies from the Roger Moore era. Either on a par with the last one (For Your Eyes Only, 1981) or slightly better but not by much. I’m going to rate it OK due to its strong back end. Still, Moore delivers a strong performance from his side as usual in this movie which is his penultimate outing as James Bond – the next one, A View To A Kill (1985) will be Roger Moore’s final outing as James Bond, and after that we enter the short but sweet Timothy Dalton era.
Note also, just a few months after the release of Octopussy, Sean Connery’s one-off comeback as Bond hit the big screen – Never Say Never Again (1983) – which was produced independently of Eon Productions who produced pretty much all the other Bond movies (except for Casino Royale, 1967, which was an unwatchably unfunny satire rather than the usual Bond genre).
The chemistry between Roger Moore (as James Bond) and Lois Maxwell (as Moneypenny) is getting quite revolting by now. They both look like someone’s grandparents. Lois even looks like she could be a cross dresser. But she’s been in that position since the start of the Sean Connery era and stays throughout the Roger Moore era. We only get a new Miss Moneypenny when the Timothy Dalton era begins. Still, better late than never.
After a nice ski chase in the opening of The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore does another one in For Your Eyes Only, but this time with a bit more context. It works quite well. It includes some brushing through alpine trees, and may have somewhat inspired Timothy Dalton’s epic snow chase on a cello case in The Living Daylights (1987).
For a movie that’s trying to be more romantic than usual, there’s a lack of attractive women in this one. Still, French actress Carole Bouquet plays Melina Havelock, the lead female, and makes for a slightly interesting character.
One of the best things about this movie is when Bond teams up with a well resourced guy called Milos Columbo – someone who Bond initially thought to be his enemy – played quite well by Chaim Topol.
There’s a couple of long diving scenes in this movie, which includes the use of small submarine-type vessels as well as independent scuba diving and some completely unassisted breath-holding diving too. It initially seems to drag on a bit too long for those who have seen it before, but scuba divers and underwater explorers may appreciate it, and gets a bit more interesting after a while (when James Bond and Melina Havelock get caught and tied up but make their escape).
The ending has a nice cliff-climbing and fortress infiltration scene.
John Wyman plays KGB agent Erich Kriegler, the main antagonist in terms of brawn, while Julian Glover plays Aristotle Kristatos, the main antagonist in terms of brains. They both do a fair job but nothing amazing.
I have to say this feels like one of the weakest Bond movies, so I’m going to rate it Lower-OK, below most of the others. It lacks a great enemy or a great female or a great plot, but Roger Moore still pulls it off in his usual style. Although Roger Moore went on to do a couple more Bond movies after this one – namely Octopussy (1983) and A View To A Kill (1985) – the shortcomings in this movie (For Your Eyes Only, 1981) may have inspired Sean Connery to come back with Never Say Never Again, produced outside of the usual Eon Productions team, and released shortly after Moore’s next movie Octopussy in 1983.
Following the success of The Spy Who Loved Me which was one of the best Bond movies of all time (and brought in the best box office revenue since Goldfinger & Thunderball in the Sean Connery era) on a budget equal to 14 million dollars, which up until that point was the highest budget a Bond movie had received by far (in real terms) and was second in budget behind You Only Live Twice after accounting for inflation – the budget was over doubled for Moonraker in both real terms and after accounting for inflation. But Moonraker’s takings at the box office remained about equal to The Spy Who Loved Me, so budgets were reigned back in after Moonraker didn’t do as well as expected for the money spent – the same budget (after accounting for inflation) was not spent again until the Pierce Brosnan era nearly two decades later, and the box office takings of The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker were not surpassed until the soppy Daniel Craig era whose movies I personally find quite unwatchable.
If your tastes matches mine, don’t forget to bookmark this site for masses of carefully curated action hero movie reviews & recommendations just like this one – tailored specifically to my own taste and anyone who thinks like me – I know there’s not many of us left, but let’s still help each other out a bit!
Both movies – The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) – were directed by Lewis Gilbert, but Moonraker lacks a woman with as much star power as Barbara Bach from The Spy Who Loved Me, and lacks an evil mastermind as convincing as Curd Jürgens. Still, at least we get the return of Roger Moore as James Bond (who performs excellently as usual) and his most legendary adversary, Jaws (another epic performance by Richard Kiel in the second of his only two ever outings as the most iconic Bond adversary of all time).
The main antagonist on the brains side, is Hugo Drax, played a bit demurely by Michael Lonsdale.
The lead females in Moonraker are played by American actress Lois Chiles (as Dr Holly Goodhead – on loan to Hugo Drax from NASA) and French actress Corinne Cléry (Corinne Dufour – personal pilot to Hugo Drax – she gets killed around half an hour in). They both deliver basic but adequate performances – both far less stunning or sophisticated than Barbara Bach from The Spy Who Loved Me, but that’s to be expected – they’re just about as tidy as an average Bond girl.
Blanche Ravalec plays the most fun female in Moonraker, called Dolly – a nerdy pigtail-wearing young woman who falls in love with Jaws and the feeling is reciprocated!
The most attractive woman in this movie is probably Emily Bolton who plays Manuela – James’s contact in Rio. She doesn’t appear until about an hour into the movie, and doesn’t get much screen time but she certainly brightens up the movie for a while.
The river boat chase after half an hour into this movie, is obviously inspired by the great boat chase in Live And Let Die, although this one is a bit cheap & nasty in comparison, but at least it’s original and not too close an imitation. And there is another boat chase in the second hour of this movie where James is given a much cooler boat. Then in turn, this movie’s boat races probably inspired Pierce Brosnan’s river boat race scene in The World Is Not Enough (1999).
When the boat becomes amphibious and drives around town about 40 minutes into this movie, that’s obviously inspired by the scene where the Lotus drives out of the sea in The Spy Who Loved Me. The reactions are a bit more developed this time round, but that’s not entirely a good thing – it’s all a bit cheesy, as if trying to be a comedy but not quite getting there, and the amphibious boat itself is a bit of a cheap looking stunt – something much improved in the second hour, and in The World Is Not Enough. Having said that, there is a nice bit of unspoken humour occasionally in this movie.
The fencing with the kendo swordsman in this movie probably inspired the swordfighting with Madonna in Die Another Day too.
It’s not till half an hour before the end when we finally see why the movie is called Moonraker – we finally see the hidden space city as James & Holly secretly board one of Drax’s shuttles.
I rate Moonraker an OK movie, like most Bond movies up until this one.
The Spy Who Loved marks Roger Moore‘s third outing as James Bond, and he does a splendid job as always.
The movie kicks off with a submarine hijack scene, followed by a quick introduction to the lead female in this movie: Russian agent, Major Anya Amasova (aka Agent Triple X), played very well by the beautiful Barbara Bach (born Barbara Goldbach), who went on to marry Beatles drummer Ringo Starr (real name Sir Richard Starkey) in 1981. I reckon Barbara has to be up there with the most attractive Bond girls of all time, considering how we’re so commonly fobbed off with a barely better than average looking woman in that role – I guess these women usually get their jobs based on how cooperative they are in giving favours to the decision makers (like the winners of most beauty pageants), but in this case Barbara was cast for the role just 4 days before filming began – she initially expected to take on a minor role but was given the lead female position at the last minute – whoever made that call did a great job, providing it wasn’t in exchange for uncomfortable favours of course. Barbara once auditioned for a lead role in the 70s TV series Charlie’s Angels, but wasn’t picked because she was deemed too sophisticated – I guess most Bond girls look less than what they should do for much the same reason – they’ve been mostly trying to push unsophisticated bimbos as goals.
From 5 minutes in, till 10 minutes in, we’re treated to a nice ski chase down a mountainside as Bond makes it exit from a chalet in Austria when he’s called to head back to England urgently. It seems like an epic scene until you realise how little of that skiing work was actually done by Roger Moore. Any time we see his face, he’s barely moving and the background is clearly overlayed using ancient video editing tricks. A stunt team of skiing experts clearly did all the work here, which is fair enough considering the risk and Roger’s probable lack of skiing expertise – it’s just work noting to observe the contrast with guys like Jackie Chan who is known for doing nearly all of his own stunts himself and that makes his work much more convincing.
The main baddies in this movie include Karl Stromberg, played by Curd Jürgens (full name Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens) who has vibes of Evelyn de Rothschild; and the legendary Richard Kiel playing Jaws – the very tall man with metal teeth (he seems to be wearing a glorified gumshield, but it’s quite convincing for the less observant). Jürgens makes his intro as Stromberg roughly 15 minutes into the movie, by sitting in his luxury underwater lair and putting a suspected traitor to death by feeding her to his sharks – something he must enjoy because he projects it onto a large TV – quite fitting behaviour for a Rothschild lookalike I’d say. Kiel also makes his debut intro as Jaws within the first 20 minutes, as he’s instructed by Stromberg to recover some microfilm containing a stolen copy of a submarine tracking system – he’s also told to kill anyone who comes into contact with it. Jaws gets properly down to action for the first time about half an hour in. He likes to kill people by biting their necks with his metal teeth, a bit like a vampire. This Jaws character was probably inspired by Tee Hee from Live And Let Die, who had a metal pincer for a hand instead of metal teeth, and also surprised Bond in his train cabin just like Jaws does in this movie. Both get their scary metal weapons exploited before being sent tumbling out the window.
At an hour into the movie, we’re treated to a nice Bond car in the form of a modified Lotus Esprit S1 which even goes under water, making for one of the most memorable scenes in the whole James Bond movie series.
The prisoner escape half an hour before the end, with the help of the rail system, was probably inspired by similar things in You Only Live Twice, from 10 years earlier, starring Sean Connery – but of course this time it’s taken to a whole new level since there’s so many prisoners, so there’s no need for floods of ninjas from the outside as in You Only Live Twice, but the effect is similar. The similarities continue, from nuclear threats, to describing the operations room as impregnable in both movies after Bond’s team captures the rest of the baddies’ building. These similarities may have something to do with the fact that both movies were directed by Lewis Gilbert – he only ever directed three Bond movies and these were his first two – the third was Moonraker which came directly after The Spy Who Loved Me and also featured Jaws.
Rating & reasoning
Overall, I rate The Spy Who Loved Me as an Upper-OK movie, alongside the best Bond movies so far like Goldfinger and Live And Let Die. Not because I prefer Moore over Connery, and not because this movie is extremely well polished or has any single great feature about it, but because of its accumulation of strengths – it has double star power with the help of a great lead female in Barbara Bach (one of the best Bond girls of all time) who is interestingly a top Russian agent temporarily cooperating with Bond – it has a couple of very convincing baddies, satisfying both brains and brawn, including possibly the best Bond baddie of all time in Jaws – it has some great submarine hijacking and re-taking scenes, a great underwater-swimming Bond car (possibly the best Bond car of all time), trips to snowy mountains as well as sandy deserts – it’s got a lot going for it compared to some of the weaker Bond movies. The movie doesn’t dwindle off at the end either – it stays strong even for people to who’ve seen it many times before to stay entertained till the very end (so long as you’ve not seen it too recently of course). The theme tune isn’t bad either. It doesn’t have the awesome comedy of Sheriff JW Pepper from Roger Moore’s first two outings as James Bond, but one movie can’t have everything, and on the overall balance of things I think it’s still the joint best Bond movie up until this point, well deserving of an Upper-OK rating by today’s action hero movie standards according to my taste.
Fun fact 1
I suspect the scene 40 minutes in, where James & Anya confront Jaws (filmed at Karnak Temple and Medinet Habu – both in Luxor, Egypt) was probably inspired by Bruce Lee’s coliseum scene that ended The Way Of The Dragon (1972) just 5 years prior to The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
The Way Of The Dragon was the last of Bruce’s films that he lived to see the premiere of. He also completed Enter The Dragon but it wasn’t released until shortly after his death – who knows if he even approved of the final edit – and he was working on Game Of Death but that movie never got anywhere near completion in his lifetime – the movie eventually released by that name was mainly made by a Bruce Lee impersonator, obviously to a much cheaper standard. Indeed, Bruce didn’t even have full control over Enter The Dragon – the story was written by someone else and funded by Warner Bros – nor did he have full control over his Hong Kong made movies prior to The Way Of The Dragon, due to the status of his contract with Golden Harvest (Raymond Chow) at the time. So, The Way Of The Dragon stands alone as pretty much the only movie Bruce completely crafted and approved with his own hands according to his own best wishes from start to finish.
The Way Of The Dragon contains a great example of the latest version of Bruce’s kung fu, which he called Jeet Kune Do (JKD). Especially in the coliseum scene at the end, where he fights Chuck Norris. He actually tried to cast karate champ Joe Lewis for that role (not to be confused with Joe Louis the boxer), but Lewis was busy with other things at the time, so Bruce reluctantly settled for karate champ Chuck Norris instead (who Bruce thought had much slower hands so wasn’t ideal, but sufficed). The casting in that movie may or may not have also been affected by a private ‘friendly’ fight Bruce had with Joe Lewis: according to witnesses, they allegedly had a dispute over some technique, so they locked themselves in a room and fought it out. Lewis came out first, face all messed up and covered in blood. Bruce came out next, fists covered in blood. Rumour says they never spoke again after that incident. Rumour also says Lewis was a little too friendly with Bruce’s wife – I don’t know how much of that is true, but this rumour is often cited as an excuse for Bruce being so close to certain Hong Kong actresses while being married to Linda Lee.
Fun fact 2
Off screen, Roger and Anya both agreed that Ian Fleming’s character James Bond were a “chauvinist pig”. Roger said, around the time of his debut as Bond in 1973: “Bond, like myself, is a male chauvinist pig. All my life I’ve been trying to get women out of brassieres and pants.” Then Anya expressed a similar sentiment to the papers 10 years later – she said Bond is “a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets.”
Roger Moore delivers a strong performance as always, in this movie, which was his second outing as James Bond.
It’s good to see the return of JW Pepper, the funny sheriff from the previous Bond movie, Live And Let Die, making some funny appearances this time while on holiday with his wife. Just like last time, Clifton James does a fantastic job in the role of Sheriff JW Pepper here.
The main baddies in this movie are Francisco Scaramanga (played quite well by Christopher Lee) and his unforgettable midget henchman-come-butler Nick Nack played very well by Hervé Villechaize.
The lead female in this movie is Britt Ekland who plays Mary Goodnight, and the next main woman is Maud Adams who plays Andrea Anders. They’re both Swedish models, and both do a fair job here. Maud Adams returns as the lead female in Octopussy, even though she was killed off in this movie.
The mirrored maze of a duelling room within Scaramanga’s secret island lair was probably inspired by the secret mirrored room on Han’s island in Enter The Dragon which was released in 1973, just 1 year prior to this movie being released.
I rate The Man With The Golden Gun as an OK movie. Not quite as good as Live And Let Die but not far off. Pretty standard for an old James Bond flick.
While this was Roger Moore‘s first outing as James Bond, he had plenty of experience starring in a similar role after his TV series The Saint which ran from 1962 to 1969. So Roger was well prepared for this role, and does a strong job here.
Live And Let Die opens with a highly memorable scene where an elaborate funeral walk turns out to be dedicated to the agent who asks “whose funeral is it?”. Shortly after that, we get the classic theme tune to this movie, which is one of the best James Bond theme tunes ever made.
This movie is quite memorable in how it features a card-reading psychic woman called Solitaire – she’s the main female in this movie and is played more than adequately by British actress Jane Seymour.
The second main female in this movie is a black woman called Rosie Carver, played quite well by Gloria Hendry.
The chief baddie, Mr Big aka Dr Kananga, is played adequately by Yaphet Kotto.
25 minutes in, we’re introduced to one of the bad guys’ main goons – a man called Tee Hee Johnson, played quite well by Julius Harris. He has a big scary metal pincer for a hand, and this probably inspired the future baddie called Jaws who has scary metal teeth and is probably the most memorable baddie in the whole James Bond movie saga. Jaws appears in two Bond movies in the late 70s – The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) – in the middle of the Roger Moore era. Incidentally, those were the only two Moore-as-Bond movies directed by Lewis Gilbert, and those were also Moore’s most successful Bond movies at the box office (both before and after accounting for inflation). Just like Tee Hee surprised James on the train in this movie, Jaws also surprises James on the train in The Spy Who Loved Me.
The other main baddie in this movie is played quite well by Geoffrey Holder – he plays a 9-foot-tall voodoo magician called Baron Samedi.
Around half an hour before the end of Live And Let Die, we’re introduced to a man who is probably the funniest character in the whole James Bond saga: Sheriff JW Pepper, played very well by Clifton James. He takes stereotypes to the extreme in a humorous way. He makes his first appearance in this movie, and makes his second & last appearance in the subsequent Bond film: The Man With The Golden Gun.
Live And Let Die was directed by Guy Hamilton, who up until this point had only directed one Bond movie – that being Goldfinger, the best one from the Connery era (and the best one till this day, according to Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic – but what do they know – they also rate Daniel Craig above Roger Moore). So we can probably expect big things from this movie, and it doesn’t disappoint. This movie is not a boring one per se, but much of it can get a bit monotonously predictable for frequent rewatchers, as the storyline is quite a basic in extended patches. Nevertheless, considering its strengths, I have to rate this an Upper-OK movie, alongside Goldfinger, making it the joint best Bond movie so far.
The Quest is an action packed, borderline slapstick adventure – or Quest – all about empty handed martial arts. It’s based on a very similar concept to Bloodsport, where a tournament decides who is the best fighter from all corners of the world, and has endless similarities with Bloodsport in terms of techniques and fighting styles, but with an added injection of great story and strong acting thanks to Roger Moore’s ever-excellent presence. The strong lead cast of The Quest makes it a convincing, enjoyable movie – just a little bit boring in the over-dragged-out final fight scene at the end, which can get monotonous for people who have seen this movie a few times before, even though the vast majority of the movie remains fun to watch every time.
If you enjoyed seeing a top martial arts action hero like Van Damme teaming up with a legend from James Bond like Roger Moore, you may also be interested in The Foreigner (2017) which sees Jackie Chan teaming up with Pierce Brosnan in what’s arguably the best performance of both their careers.
