megabeady3 Reviews

Octopussy (1983)

FLAWED, BUT ULTIMATELY ENTERTAINING ROGER MOORE ERA FLUFF

[6/10 · 17 November 2004]

All in all, Octopussy is a slightly above average movie. If I were Roger Ebert, my thumb would be up--but just barely. I like Roger Moore because of his sense of humor and the elegant confidence in which he carries himself in the Bond role, but he lacks the edginess of the slightly better Sean Connery. I like the ladies in the film, especially Maud Adams, who plays the title character. As fair as villains go, Louis Jourdan as Kamal Khan is below average. He is urbane (like Bond), but lacks the menace to be among the best Bond villains. Baddies like Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Blofeld were great because you really felt that menace. But other than one scene in he eats the eyeball of a sheep, he is too ordinary. The best Bond villains are scary whackjobs bent on world domination.

The scenes in India are very good, with a real sense of the exotic. I especially liked the scenes with Bond and Q (the slapstick routine actually works here). The scenes in Germany are a mixed bag. There is some genuine tension when Bond tries to defuse the bomb, but did the folks at Eon really need Roger Moore to dress up as a clown when he does it? Sometimes, he one-liners and sight gags need to be put away, especially in the end of the films.

Still, Octopussy is a decent film, and the stunt work at the very begging (Bond inside a plane) and the very end (Bond OUTSIDE a plane), are good moments indeed. Octopussy is still better than most of the brainless action pictures of the last five years or so.

Die Another Day (2002)

MAYBE IT'S TIME TO PUT THE BOND SERIES TO BED

[1/10 · 13 November 2004]

Die Another Day is worst James Bond film. Period. End of discussion. Case closed. End of story.

Pierce Brosnan is a fine actor, and his first three Bond outings were solid, if not spectacular. But Die Another Day overwhelms you with mindless CGI and action sequences, overwhelming the characters. Please do yourself a favor, folks. Go to your local video store and rent Goldfinger, the 1964 classic that is without question the BEST Bond outing in the series. Goldfinger has far less action, but is ten times more entertaining.

Why? Because Goldfinger has virtues like PLOT, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, and TOP-NOTCH DIALOGUE.

By comparison, Die Another Day is a cinematic video game. I like Toby Stephens as the arrogant Brit-brat, but Brosnan seems subdued and, well, old. Halle Berry is a vastly overrated actress, and Rick Yune is a baddie straight from central casting. The less said about Madonna's theme song, the better. My, how the mighty have fallen.

A View to a Kill (1985)

UNDERRATED "GUILTY PLEASURE" ENTRY IN THE BOND SERIES

[9/10 · 13 November 2004]

This 1985 Bond film is one of the better entries in the Bond series, even if the story is a bit absurd. It's not quite as good as some of the 1960's classics, and Tanya Roberts is simply awful as the heroine, but Roger Moore is always a treat to watch, and Christopher Walken is solid, if a bit low-key. Some of the scenes in France drag on (the "horse steroids" subplot is tangential to the main story about microchips), but A View to a Kill is still more intelligent than the mindless, over-the-top-action-over-storyline Bonds of the Pierce Brosnan era. Roger Moore is the second-best bond because of his wit alone. If you have to guess who the BEST Bond is, you obviously don't know your Bond history very well.