Rating: 16/20
Plot: It's just like the plot of the last James Bond movie I watched except with boats instead of spaceships and an indestructible guy with metal teeth.
Call me a blasphemer, but I really might like Roger Moore as Bond as much as I like Sean Connery. The movies I've seen and remember with Roger Moore are at least a little more fun. I think I prefer my Bond to be a little goofy. A good Bond movie needs a good villain, and this one's got a couple--a dude who has webbed fingers for absolutely no good reason and Jaws with those metal teeth. And Richard Kiel's character really is indestructible. He is pinned against a wall with an SUV, he has a bunch of heavy shit dropped on him, survives a car crash through the roof of a house, and [SPOILER ALERT] ludicrously bites a shark to death. I just love the way Kiel dwarfs Roger Moore in these scenes. Curt Jurgens plays an interesting enough villain--still can't figure out why he they needed to give him webbed fingers--but the henchman definitely overshadows him here. He probably needs a new dentist though. This entry's stuffed with great action, from more blue-screen skiing scenes with disco accompaniment to explosions/magnets/sharks hooey at the end. In between, you get trampolining and gymnastics backed by "Nobody Does It Better;" a great obvious dummy falling off a cliff; a thrilling chase sequence featuring a motorcycle, a helicopter, and a fly submarine-car; and a nearly pornographic shark attack with some soothing classical music behind it. Since this is a Bond movie, he travels around a lot, and here, he gets to see pyramids. That's a terrific scene, and I loved how music and color was used there. There's also another cool bad guy base, the Atlantis, although I'd argue that a villain who once again has a perfect opportunity to kill the protagonist and refuses to take it probably doesn't deserve a cool base. And then there's Barbara Bach, the titular spy who loved him unless I'm confused and he's the titular spy who loved her. If one of them has to be titular, I'm going to go with Bach though. Indeed, there's some side boob in a shower scene. Bach's easy on the spy's eyes, but either her accent or her lack of acting ability makes it seem like she's a terrible actress. I do love the play between her and Bond though. The wonderfully leggy Caroline Munro (Mrs. Phibes herself) is also in this, and my favorite moment in any James Bond movie just might be when she winks in this movie. Needless to say, I'm putting that toward the front of my masturbation rolodex. Throw in plenty of double entendre ("Let him pull out immediately," "Delve deeply into Egypt's treasures," and Bach's character called Agent Triple X) and some camel noises that I'm pretty sure came straight out of Star Wars. One gripe: There are a lot of similarities between this and You Only Live Twice. Boats eating boats in a serpentine effort to start World War III isn't that far off from the spaceship eating spaceships thing in that movie.
3 comments:
I like the first few Roger Moore Bonds, before he got a little long in the tooth and shorter on believability and funny one-liners. And this is my favorite Bond film. From the cheers and applause in the theatre when the Union Jack opens, through great action sequences with maybe the best Bond thug (with the same name as my favorite movie!), and finally ending with a great climax, this Bond is non-stop fun. An 18, with extra credit for the cool villian lair and for the Pyramid action sequence.
I've never seen the other movie with Jaws, the space-adventure one. Not sure why I haven't seen it since it looks like the silliest thing ever.
I also haven't bothered to seeit. Later Moore Bond's became way too goofy.
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