Octopussy

This was where my live for the James Bond franchise began. What a great character to follow for decades to come!

Out of all the Bondfilms with Roger Moore as 007, Octopussy is the one with the most Cold War aspects, and yes, what a great atmosphere I experienced when I saw the scenes in East-Germany, truly magnificent. If you are talking about those Cold War aspects you should not forget to mention Steven Berkoff his performance of an insane Soviet general with a hunger for power. Wonderful. The other villains are memorable as well: Louis Jourdan with style and sophistication; Kabir Bedi as one of those invincible henchmen and David Meyer & Tony Meyer are deadly twin brothers with an advanced skill in the trowing of daggers. As for the girls this one features two Swedish ladies: Maud Adams and Kristina Wayborn. Both of them are very strong and they have both some lovely scenes. Vijay Amritraj is Bond his ally in India: worth watching. This is also the first of four films to feature Robert Brown as Bond his superior M. John Barry is once again present with a truly wonderful soundtrack. The film is really amusing and has a great atmosphere. Despite the claim of many critics, Roger Moore is still in good shape. The only scene that disappointed me was the one where 007 is disguised in a circus clown, that will be painful for Bondfans, but the rest of the film is great. Do not skip this one.

"Octopussy" is really peculiar in the series. Because, for example, we see Bond dressed like a clown or keeping a plaster; there's an exotic and romantic atmosphere -which reminds us of some adventure books (like Emilio Salgari's "Sandokan" and "The count of Monte-Cristo"...) Here 007 has to travel between India and Germany for stopping a catastrophic plan of Soviet General Orlov and Afghan prince Khamal Khan.

With a little more parody than in the previous film "For your eyes only", "Octopussy" continues in the line of more down to earth Bond adventures.

Roger Moore's performance is good as usual, the cast is also remarkable -Louis Jourdan is one of the French actors who built a good Hollywood career, starring in films like Hitchcock's "The Paradine case" and Vincente Minnelli's "Gigi". He's Kamal Khan, a very charming and sophisticated villain -he's the criminal equivalent of Bond. Jourdan brings a special touch of glamour -you see he's an actor of the golden years of Hollywood!

Maud Adams is the only actress who played twice a Bond girl -she was Andrea in "The man with the golden gun".

Steven Berkoff is an established English actor, mainly for theater, but he played also in Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon".

Kabir Bedi is an Indian actor very popular in the second half of the Seventies -he was "Sandokan" in a famous TV film made by RAI, Italian public TV.

John Glen directs the film with a lot of fun and assures a great show. The film doesn't disappoint.

"Octopussy" is the last great Roger Moore movie as Bond, and maybe the last BIG Bond of the series as well -because it's original, lavish, acrobatic, romantic and pompous.

8,5/10

Octopussy is directed by John Glen and adapted to screenplay by George Macdonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson. It stars Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jordan, Kabir Bedi, Steven Berkoff, Vijay Amritraj and Robert Brown. Music is scored by John Barry and cinematography by Alan Hume.

Bond 13 and 007 is assigned to find the link between the murder of 009 and the Fabergé egg found in the slain agent's possession. His investigation leads him to uncover a fiendish plot by a rogue Soviet General to detonate a nuclear device that will leave Western Europe vulnerable to a Soviet attack.

Undeniably the film that should have been Roger Moore's last as James Bond, Octopussy contains both the best and worst of the James Bond franchise. On the plus side is a very good core story that encompasses intelligent political overtones that were prevalent of the time period. A nuclear crisis is in the air and the East and the West, who have until now been casting suspicious eyes over each other, must co-operate to avert disaster. This closing down of the Cold War is nicely etched into the plot structure by the makers. The cast assembled is mostly impressive, with Adams and Jordan doing great characterisations, the photography by Hume makes India look like a paradise, Glen orchestrates some excellent action set-pieces, including one of the best pre-credits scenes of the series, and Barry's score is a swirl of romanticism and invention. The title song, All Time High sung by Rita Coolidge, is magnificent and this writer's personal favourite of all the Bond theme songs. While there's a new man enviably following the much missed Bernard Lee by playing M (Robert Brown) and Q (Desmond Llewelyn) gets a bigger role to play in the story.

Sadly, even though Moore is continuing the good acting of Bond he achieved in For Your Eyes Only, he is looking his age and not physically suited to the action. He is also saddled with having to do moronic things like swinging on a vine whilst doing the Tarzan jungle yell. It's pretty painful to watch and you have to wonder who on earth thought it was a good idea? There's moments when a silly bit of humour undermines the good plotting, while Berkoff and Amritraj are in turn over the top villainy and scarcely believable as a field agent. The film looks cheap, a rarity for a Bond film, and the smartness of the story often gets buried beneath the weight of convolutions. Most galling is that we should have had a classic Bond movie, a gargantuan feast of sets and tough secret agent shenanigans, for this was the year when Bond as we know it was facing off against the Kevin McClory rival Bond movie, Never Say Never Again, and that had Sean Connery in it; though he was also like Moore in his early 50s and too old for the suit.

The two films never met head to head at the box office, because McClory's was delayed. Both films made monster cash, with Octopussy grossing $184 million and Never Say Never Again copping $160 million, Bond, and the two actors playing the role were enough to ensure the cash tills rang loud and proud. But both films were solid rather than special, the profit margins were high but the quality wasn't. Octopussy has a bit of something for all types of Bond fans, but they just can't make a successful whole. From the Eon side of things there surely had to be a new direction, some decision making assertiveness instead of fluctuating between earthy Bond and ridiculous button pushing Bond, it needed some vim and vigour brought back into the fray. Moore planned to retire, and rightly so, was we about to see the dawn of a new Bond era? 7/10

I did not predict that I would like this the most of Roger Moore's Bond films. It's reputation is honestly not that good, but I was more caught up in the action and story of Octopussy than any Bond film since On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It doesn't go the same route as Lazenby's picture, though. It's more of a straight forward action mystery, but it does it with more style and clarity than any other Moore film.

This is what Diamonds are Forever wanted to be, except that this film actually gives us a good excuse for Bond to investigate diamond smuggling while also providing an interesting series of clues that add up to an actual adventure. We start with two main actions, the killing of a clown outside of a circus in Germany where he delivers a Faberge Egg to a British official in his final moments, and a crazed Soviet general outlining his plan to send a couple dozen tank divisions into the West, confident that there would be no counterattack. The general gets dismissed angrily by General Gogol, but it's obvious that General Orlov isn't going to stop there.

The death of 009, the clown, is the exact kind of hook that would send 007 into the field to investigate, and the investigation quickly takes him to India. The movie uses the colors and visual flavors of the country really well as Bond navigates backgammon games, chases with auto rickshaws, and even a hunt that includes elephants where Bond himself is the quarry. It's well filmed and exciting stuff that gets Bond one step closer each time to what he thinks is the center of the mystery, an island populated by young women and the eponymous Octopussy, a slightly older woman who runs a jewelry smuggling ring whom Bond immediately beds because he's James Bond.

The mystery continues, though, because there has to be more than just jewelry smuggling and, as Octopussy points out, jewelry smuggling isn't the concern of the British secret service (a subtle dig at Diamonds are Forever, perhaps?). Bond keeps following the trail and finds that there is more, and it involves that Russian General Orlov. He's used the jewelry smuggling operation by stealing precious Russian jewels and selling them in order to buy a nuclear weapon that he will detonate at an American military base in Germany. His hope is that the explosion will look like an accident and drive the West towards denuclearization, which he'll be able to use back home as justification for a more aggressive approach towards dealing with Europe.

For a movie that's talked about as inherently silly, that plot by Orlov is surprisingly grounded. It's not about neutering the human race like in Moonraker or making life unlivable on land so people will move to the sea like in The Spy Who Loved Me. It's about triggering an explosion that will create a political environment for the Soviet Union can take advantage of. It's still about bombs, spies, and chases, but the basic evil plot feels surprisingly grounded and real. I've never minded the sillier aspects of Moore's run as Bond, mostly objecting to the fact that they're poorly constructed, but this plot feels like something Connery's Bond would have dealt with.

The silliness is there, though. The famous Tarzan yell is a headscratcher at best. The alligator disguise isn't really that out there, but it's definitely weird. However, in particular with the Tarzan yell, that happens at the end of a compelling chase where Bond has to escape captivity in an Indian mansion where his host is readying a hunt on his elephant and ends up chasing Bond instead. It's taught and exciting, and then there's the embarrassing visual and sound, but it's a very small part of the sequence. I don't excuse the yell, but I do note that it's a small part of a sequence that works really well in a movie that actually knows how to unfold a mystery. Oh, and it ends with one of the best stunt sequences in the franchise as Bond fights his way into a plane as its flying.

Maud Adams as the titular character has an easy rapport with Bond and fits in nicely with the overall plot, running a circus that Orlov uses to get the bomb into West Germany. When she strikes back out against Khan, the man who got her unwittingly involved with Orlov, she does it from a position of strength, using what skills she has to exact her revenge. Yes, the sight of a series of circus performers descending on an Indian villa and using their skills to infiltrate and fight is a bit silly, but it still works overall.

So, yeah, if the movie had held back some of its sillier elements (I guess it could have done with one less bit of Bond dressed up like a clown), I think it would have improved. There's a tonal problem when some of these things pop up, but the rest of the movie around them is really, really good. The only Bond movie under Moore that understands how to unfold a mystery and gives us a compelling antagonist. This movie is really underappreciated and is Moore's best outing.