Review of Diamonds Are Forever (1971) by Luke N — 03 Nov 2013

Seeing as I haven't seen OHMSS in over ten years - thus cannot give an informed opinion of it - I consider 1971's 'Diamonds Are Forever' to be the first time the James Bond engine really lost its "mojo".

Having more recently read the original novel, by the late Ian Fleming, my respect for this movie has only decreased more. The novel is excellent ... but this film, I'm sad to say, is awful. Sean Connery evidently didn't care by this stage, and so the Bond character himself just seems to be going through the motions.

They stripped down the absorbing heroine character (Tiffany Case), into a klutzy bimbo, who does little more than raise her eyebrows, look sexy, and scream. As far as the series' collection of zany henchmen goes, Wint and Kidd are the fucking worst.

(And let's just not mention the scene with "Bambi" and Thumper"). The film admittedly starts off well in Amsterdam - playing like just another comical thriller - but once the story kicks in and our hero ventures into Las Vegas, whatever interest there might have been in this movie just gets sucked away by the muddled mishmash of silliness, which would go on (though not as ineptly) for the next fifteen years.

Any Bond fan will know that there still are some things worth seeing in this film, but overall I just think it spirals too far out of control, and comes across as actually quite insulting, for it demonstrates just how far the series has already detoured from the original Fleming novels.