Review of Live and Let Die (1973) by Ilja S — 27 Dec 2015

Personally my least favorite of Roger Moore's brilliantly campy and gloriously ludicrous run as Bond, but still great fun. Live and let die is first and foremost possibly the weirdest film in the 007 pantheon, delving into voodoo and hints of black magic and featuring scenes that dont feel like a bond flick at all (like the sacrificial graveyard ritual) it also feels like it's heavily riffing on the whole blacksplotitation gener boom of the seventies, albeit in a cringy ass way, it's like Superfly crossed with james bond, making for a dodgy, cliched look at black culture.

It also has the distinction of having the worst female characters in the series, they are all either morons or useless (even a female secret agent at one point doesnt remember to take the safety off her gun) theres a real, rampant, annoying misogyny here that's heavy even for these films.

But the plot is nuts (heroin, black magic, creepy animatronic scarecrows and... im not sure) the stunts and action are awesome (the speedboat chase is especially well orchestrated) and it has one of the great henchmen villains, the hilariously named Tee Hee.