Following hot on the heels of Live and Let Die, Roger Moore's second Bond movie The Man With The Golden Gun is a troubled and confused affair. The plot primarily concerns a duel between 007 and Francisco Scaramanga, the world's highest paid and deadliest assassin, played wonderfully menacingly by Christopher Lee.
There are plenty of memorable moments, mostly whilst Lee himself is on screen, and the fight sequence between the two protagonists, the culmination of the movie, is probably the best paced and directed sequence, let down by an obvious and irritating conclusion (Bond wins the fatal moment of surprise by posing as a wax dummy of himself in Scaramanga's lair).
A jokey camp feeling, ludicrous events and situations, and some rather weak dialogue undermine the rest of the film. For example, during the car chase in Thailand, the 360 degree car flip, which was technically brilliant as a stunt and perfectly executed, was overshadowed by a cheesy circus-style sound effect. Sheriff Pepper, the red neck bumpkin sheriff from Live and Let Die, is for some reason brought back, adding to the spoof dimension as he hollers and shouts in his distinctive Southern accent on the streets of Bangkok. For some reason he is buying an American car whilst on holiday there. Scaramanga's car turns into a plane, two schoolgirls defeat a horde of martial arts expert in the cheesiest fight scene in history, Bond impersonates someone by walking into a highly guarded house wearing a fake nipple as a disguise, and Britt Ekland is for some reason repeatedly refused the opportunity to sleep with 007. It's almost like an Austin Powers movie.
There are so many problems with the plot I won't go into them all, but suffice it to say that for a Bond film the script is highly sloppy, with errors such as including a whole fight scene just to allow Bond a couple of one-liners. Most of the plot developments lack any kind of logic, and even obvious slip-ups are made, like M ringing Bond on Scaramanga's personal bedroom telephone. Again, this was for a gag. Additionally, all the characters are bad tempered and terse, which adds negative energy to the piece. The preference of director Guy Hamilton for set-pieces and silly humour over coherent and structured plotting and quality dialogue, the staple of a good Bond movie, encapsulates the problems experienced by TMWTGG.
There are positives however. Apart from the Pepper and Goodnight characters, each individual role is well crafted, with Herve Villechaize visually effective as a henchman. Maud Adams is good as Andrea, although she would surpass this in the title role of Octopussy nine years later. Lee gives a simmering and deadly performance as the main villain Scaramanga, and adds tremendous screen presence almost allowing us to overlook the many plot holes. In fairness, Roger Moore looks quite uncomfortable and stilted as Bond, but nevertheless he holds up quite well and is a fairly strong positive for the movie, despite his character being involved in far too many seaside-style jokes.
The locations, cinematography, set design, and choreography were well done, as you would expect from such an experienced crew. Despite the flaws in the written material you can still rely on this as technically pretty well done, despite what appears to have been a fairly limited budget. This was the last movie to be co-produced by Broccoli and Harry Saltzman before the latter left the franchise, selling his stake to the studio. Perhaps the imperfections in the movie could be attributed to the deterioration in the working relationship between the two, but I think that the scriptwriters Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz must shoulder some of the blame too.
In conclusion this is a fairly flawed and inferior entry into the Bond canon. The purists dislike it, and not without reason, but despite the many dead ends and holes in the script, as well as the usual Bond habit of setting out to do one thing whilst accomplishing another, there is still enough overall quality to make this enjoyable viewing. Despite its many problems, The Man With The Golden Gun is still a lot of fun with numerous memorable moments to make it worthwhile, though if I had to offer a shining example of the Bond movies to win over non-fans, it would not be this.
As a Bond film: 3/10. As just another movie: 6/10 Interesting concepts and a lot of positives spoiled by silly errors. Spoilers
There are plenty of memorable moments, mostly whilst Lee himself is on screen, and the fight sequence between the two protagonists, the culmination of the movie, is probably the best paced and directed sequence, let down by an obvious and irritating conclusion (Bond wins the fatal moment of surprise by posing as a wax dummy of himself in Scaramanga's lair).
A jokey camp feeling, ludicrous events and situations, and some rather weak dialogue undermine the rest of the film. For example, during the car chase in Thailand, the 360 degree car flip, which was technically brilliant as a stunt and perfectly executed, was overshadowed by a cheesy circus-style sound effect. Sheriff Pepper, the red neck bumpkin sheriff from Live and Let Die, is for some reason brought back, adding to the spoof dimension as he hollers and shouts in his distinctive Southern accent on the streets of Bangkok. For some reason he is buying an American car whilst on holiday there. Scaramanga's car turns into a plane, two schoolgirls defeat a horde of martial arts expert in the cheesiest fight scene in history, Bond impersonates someone by walking into a highly guarded house wearing a fake nipple as a disguise, and Britt Ekland is for some reason repeatedly refused the opportunity to sleep with 007. It's almost like an Austin Powers movie.
There are so many problems with the plot I won't go into them all, but suffice it to say that for a Bond film the script is highly sloppy, with errors such as including a whole fight scene just to allow Bond a couple of one-liners. Most of the plot developments lack any kind of logic, and even obvious slip-ups are made, like M ringing Bond on Scaramanga's personal bedroom telephone. Again, this was for a gag. Additionally, all the characters are bad tempered and terse, which adds negative energy to the piece. The preference of director Guy Hamilton for set-pieces and silly humour over coherent and structured plotting and quality dialogue, the staple of a good Bond movie, encapsulates the problems experienced by TMWTGG.
There are positives however. Apart from the Pepper and Goodnight characters, each individual role is well crafted, with Herve Villechaize visually effective as a henchman. Maud Adams is good as Andrea, although she would surpass this in the title role of Octopussy nine years later. Lee gives a simmering and deadly performance as the main villain Scaramanga, and adds tremendous screen presence almost allowing us to overlook the many plot holes. In fairness, Roger Moore looks quite uncomfortable and stilted as Bond, but nevertheless he holds up quite well and is a fairly strong positive for the movie, despite his character being involved in far too many seaside-style jokes.
The locations, cinematography, set design, and choreography were well done, as you would expect from such an experienced crew. Despite the flaws in the written material you can still rely on this as technically pretty well done, despite what appears to have been a fairly limited budget. This was the last movie to be co-produced by Broccoli and Harry Saltzman before the latter left the franchise, selling his stake to the studio. Perhaps the imperfections in the movie could be attributed to the deterioration in the working relationship between the two, but I think that the scriptwriters Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz must shoulder some of the blame too.
In conclusion this is a fairly flawed and inferior entry into the Bond canon. The purists dislike it, and not without reason, but despite the many dead ends and holes in the script, as well as the usual Bond habit of setting out to do one thing whilst accomplishing another, there is still enough overall quality to make this enjoyable viewing. Despite its many problems, The Man With The Golden Gun is still a lot of fun with numerous memorable moments to make it worthwhile, though if I had to offer a shining example of the Bond movies to win over non-fans, it would not be this.
As a Bond film: 3/10. As just another movie: 6/10 Interesting concepts and a lot of positives spoiled by silly errors. Spoilers