Review of Octopussy (1983) by Stefan G — 23 Oct 2014

Everything that made For Your Eyes Only somewhat likeable will not be found in this lifeless outing, with its clearly ageing star trying and failing to save it from the brink of mediocrity. The story was so boring and needlessly stretched out that it almost reaches the apogee of tedium.

Perhaps the tedious nature of the film perfectly encapsulates how irreparably stale the Bond franchise had gotten by this point. The characters are very uninteresting, which is a shame because the Bond films are usually saved by decent performances, and this movie has next to none.

The production values were alright, but the film just felt like it was forcing itself onto the viewer with octopus tentacles, and the film's overall style simply feels antiquated to the point of blatant repetition, the only skill that Bond is really good at nowadays.

I've heard that the action scenes are pretty good, but in my experience, the action scenes felt inferior to previous Bond films. Everything about this unfortunately titled Bond flick is inferior to its predecessors, and it's precisely this quality, along with the overall lack of creativity that was employed, that makes it one of the worst films the whole franchise.