Bond…..James Bond.
Given that it was Thanksgiving weekend, and that as of Friday morning I ended up on the couch sick for the next two days (only getting sort of better today, Sunday), it was time to watch endless James Bond movie reruns on ‘Syfy‘ (the channel that also thinks WWE wrestling somehow has a connection with science fiction – sigh). I haven’t finished them yet, only caught most of The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only – still have Moonraker and Octopussy on DVR for later. These are all Roger Moore Bond films – they showed the Connery ones on Thursday (not that I haven’t seen all those several times too) with a few of the Pierce Brosnan ones and the two Daniel Craig movies sprinkled throughout. Thankfully we were spared the brief journey through Timothy Dalton’s time as Bond – I like him as an actor generally but his Bond films simply sucked, sorry Dalton fans.
The Spy Who Loved Me has always been a personal fave – I saw it in the theater when it came out in 1977, one of the first movies I got to see, I’m sure. It has all the classic Bond elements – great villain (with one of the most impressive ‘lairs‘ seen in all the movies, if not the coolest outright), ridiculous ‘kill the world’ plot, vivacious Bond girls, an excellent ‘Bondmobile’ (here, a white Lotus Esprit that doubles as a submarine, probably the reason why I’ve always wanted one of these cars despite their British heritage), decent action sequences and special effects (which really haven’t dated too badly given their age) and the usual series of scenarios and situations that Bond inevitably escapes through fancy cocktails, bedding nearly all the women (friend or foe, they sure all think he’s the c*** of the walk) and dressing like he’s going to a wedding no matter what the situation – meaning of course he blends right into all those exotic places no problemo! And don’t forget Richard Kiel as Jaws – huge bad guy with metal teeth – who turns up in other Roger Moore Bond films – always a classic. While Roger Moore simply cannot be taken seriously as a spy – barring possibly the first couple movies he got way too old too quickly to be doing all these crazy stunts (acc. to IMDB he’s actually 3 years OLDER than Connery!) and he just plays it for laughs too much for this to be a ‘thriller’ – it’s still fun entertainment.
For Your Eyes Only is decent, but not as good IMHO. It has another cool Lotus (he blows one up very early in the film so naturally gets another when he takes his ski trip) – because every spy naturally shows up at an Italian ski lodge in a race car with skis on top – glitterati indeed. And the ski chase where two guys on motorcycles pursue him down the hill, over buildings, and even through most of a bobsled run, are pretty well done. The early car chase in the Citroen 2CV (they beat the living crap out of that poor car, but they are stuck with it because he already blew up the Lotus) is well done too, if a bit more unbelievable. I had forgotten about the later sequences filmed at one of the Meteora monasteries in Greece, that’s pretty cool too – and thankfully not just the usual Hollywood ‘outside of L.A. in the desert’ onsite shooting – they were actually there. But no devious villain with a big lair, no over-arching plot – just a race against time (and the KGB) to retrieve a sunken British spy ship with a special code computer onboard. Fairly mundane stuff, really – not a SPECTRE to be seen anywhere?
After a while Bond movies all start to run together though. I’m glad they’ve taken a more traditional approach with the Daniel Craig movies – less high-tech silliness and more straight ‘thriller’ – they far more resemble the Bourne movies in that respect, and it works.
candybowl
Tags: 70's, freaks, fun!, malevolence, movies, technology, TV