Moore's third outing as Bond, and the one that began the series descent into mediocrity.Not as good as the previous "Man With The Golden Gun"-not a great entry in itself-but it tried to retain the character and essence of Bond, this one threw all caution to the wind and gave us a comic book Bond. The faults are many.The film is overlong and you wait too long for anything really exciting to happen. The Soviet agent, as played by Barbara Bach shows no real emotion and is never seen as a threat. There is a 7 foot tall henchman named "Jaws"- with steel teeth{yeah right} and superhuman strenght.Watching him take apart a truck is unbelievable and embarrassing to the viewer at the same time. What were the producers and writers thinking when they came up with him. There is a Lotus sports car that converts into a submarine- you have to see it to disbelieve it! And the plot has yet another megalomaniac trying to dominate the world. Anything new here? On the positive side, there is his underwater lair, a crab like structure that rises and submerges, and the finale set inside a large oil tanker containing 3 hijacked nuclear submarines is quite good. The set is well designed and detailed and almost redeems this mess, even though it owes its concept to the SPECTRE missle base in the dead volcano from "You Only Live Twice". This disco era Bond, now reduced to a middle aged punster would go on to do "Moonraker" 2 years later. The less said about that, the better.After doing "For Your Eyes Only" in 1981, it seemed the series was trying to get itself back on course and back to basics, but after the wretched " A View To A Kill" and not much better "Octopussy", Moore's stint as Bond was over.At least Timothy Dalton bought a new edge to Bond, but he only lasted for 2 films.On the plus side is the theme song sung by Carly Simon-one of the best in the series.
Review of The Spy Who Loved Me
