Review of Octopussy (1983) by Bruce B — 17 Feb 2014

"Octopussy", the 13th James Bond movie, is Roger Moore's best 007 picture. This is a very entertaining adventure with some excellent performances from the cast. "Octopussy" takes 007 to India and Germany were he gets in way over his head trying to avenge the death of a fellow agent by stopping some seriously nasty jewelry smugglers who were involved in the death of agent 009.

Moore gives his best performance as Bond, and he's surrounded by a terrific cast. Maud Adams (Octopussy) and Kristina Wayborn (Magda) are wonderful as the Bond women; Louis Jourdan (Kamal Khan) and Kabir Bedi (Gobinda) are excellent as two of the main villains.

All the other actors in "Octopussy" are cast to perfection except one: Steven Berkoff goes way over-the-top in his portrayl of the third villain, Soviet General Orlov. This character is just too silly here, and I'd wish the writers would have taken this character out.

His prescene mars what would have made this a perfect film. However, this character doesn't appear in the film as much as the other two villains and that's good. Berkoff played a much better villain in "Beverly Hills Cop", which came out a year-and-a-half after this.

Here, he overacts. Aside from that, "Octopussy" is one of the best James Bond movies ever made. And, Desmond Llewelyn gives one of his funniest performances here as gadgetmeister Q. Lots and lots of fun.

4 Stars 2-16-14.