If there’s one thing we haven’t had enough of in James Bond films, it’s deaths at the hands of sharks. Fortunately, this film gives us plenty of these in spades.
It’s a bonus, I guess. It also gives us the first James Bond film without the slack-jawed racist Sheriff, so there’s another fortunate bonus for us. It also gives us Jaws, who’s actually not a bad Bond villain and somehow iconic.
This film also gives us one of the best pieces of Bond music ever with Carly Simon’s “Nobody Does it Better.”
And, if you ask my ten year old son, this is the greatest Bond film ever made because it features a car that goes underwater. If you ask me, though, I think this might be Bond’s worse car. Being so close to the 60s, they seemed to have abandoned the classic elegance that Bond was. Roger Moore wore digital watches and drove the latest car, instead of the coolest. It was all very blah.
If, like me, though, you’re a warm-blooded adult who enjoys the promise of what James Bond can be, you’ll find that this isn’t all that great of a movie, but as I rewatch the Roger Moore films, I find that this might be the most bearable of his oeuvre. The convoluted plot involves an evil “Hank Scorpio” style super villain who has taken control of American and Russian nuclear submarines and plans to unleash nuclear war on the world while he lives peacefully in his underwater community.
The most interesting part of the plot (especially for 1977) is that Bond is forced to work with a KGB agent (Agent XXX) whose lover he’s killed. I also quite loved how they played up Bond’s background as a Commander in the British Navy. He’s seen in uniform and even referred to as Commander. It’s sad to think that it’s one of the few elements the Moore era did right and the Craig era seems to have done away with entirely.
“The Spy Who Loved Me” might have the best, wry Bond one-liner that ends any of the films. “Bond, what are you doing?” M asks, after finding Bond and Agent XXX in an escape craft on the water, half-naked or under covers.
“Keeping the British end up,” he replies, before closing the curtain and the end credits begin to roll.
It’s also interesting to note that the end of this film promises that Bond will be back in “For Your Eyes Only” but Moonraker is the next to come out. Citizen-bot will be back with a review of that tomorrow.
This might be the peak of Roger Moore’s Bond era and one of the few Moore-era Bond’s that isn’t a chore to watch. For that, I’ll give it 2 martinis.
