Review of Octopussy (1983) by Paul P — 21 Dec 2008

The second best Bond film of the 80's, IMO. The entire last hour of the film is non-stop in such a way that it's almost tiring seeing a Bond in his late 50's keep up with it... even if that is unintentional. It's just full of essentially non-stop stunts and invention. It's one of those Bond films where just when you think you're at the climatic sequence, it keeps going a step further. The final sequence as Bond clings to the roof of first a speeding train is in fact good enough to be the climax of the picture... but no, it accelerates from that to the roof of a speeding plane thousands of feet in the air, twisting, diving, and NONE OF IT looks phony or cheap. Just real and dangerous. The first hour as well is full of great stuff. One of my favorite scenes involves a game of dice between Bond and the villain, to which he makes an absolute fool out of his smug, cheating ass, recalling the scene from Goldfinger. "It's just a flick of the wrist." Classic.

John Barry's score is great here. While the theme some by Rita Coolidge, All Time High is kind of weak, Barry makes some really nice use of it musically in his compositions. It's the best Bond score since Moonraker and a welcome return to form after Bill Conti's dated disco work. The humor here is high in abundance, far more of it than For Your Eyes Only which was a bit more serious-faced. I'm fine with it. You can't keep forcing Roger Moore to be what he's not and most of the humor here is entertaining with the exception of a few painfully over-the-top bits such as Bond doing a Tarzan yell during a jungle chase.

Beyond that it's one of the most entertaining Bond films of its time and the better Bond flick of the year. Never Say Never Again was in direct competition with Sean Connery returning to the role. Pretty exciting yes... the movie itself, not so much. Which is a shame considering some of the talent involved with that one but it just came across as a poor remake of Thunderball and now feels absurdly dated. Audiences more or less felt the same way as this film out-grossed that one and one the war. It's too bad they didn't realize Sean Connery power wasn't enough. This one had the classic Bond thrills, music, and humor. It still does.

It has faults, sure, as noted the humor can be a little too much. The villains are rather stock but aren't terrible.... they're just no Red Grant, Blofeld, Goldfinger, or Largo. But it's a constant entertainment all the same and one of the best Moore Bond films that deserves, IMO, in no way to be ranked with his lowest. It's also fantastic to see Q play a larger role and exit the film like a pimp.