For their podcast The Talk Show, John Gruber and Dan Benjamin have been watching the James Bond movies in order and discussing them on the show. Now that Netflix has added the bulk of the series to its instant watch library, I thought I’d play along. Warning! Spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk!

What a difference a year makes! The Man With The Golden Gun is better than Live And Let Die in possibly every conceivable way. Who knows, maybe the latter was plagued with bad source material? I dunno. What I do know is that this “review” is going to be very stream-of-consciousness, so watch out!

So when I watched this movie over and over again as a kid, Francisco Scaramanga (the bad guy) was just played by some guy. Adult John knows that the actor is none other than Christopher Lee, who played Saruman in Fellowship Of The Rings. Awesome! To be fair, he’s also the Christopher Lee who played Count Dooku in the crappy Star Wars prequels, but I don’t blame that movie’s flaws on him…

I like to gripe about stuff in movies, so let’s get right to the crappy stuff:

First of all, Sheriff J.W. Pepper is back. *sigh* That’s right, the bumbling, racist sheriff from the last Bond film. I guess someone thought that guy was really funny. I find him annoying and offensive, in more ways than one.

Also, they ruined perhaps the coolest car stunt ever captured on film. According to Wikipedia, the car is an AMC Hornet X. Very good looking car! I especially liked the upholstery. Anyway, Bond has to jump the car across a river, so he drives at high speed off of this twisting bridge that has collapsed causing the car to do this awesome corkscrew jump to the other piece of the bridge on the other side of the river. An amazing stunt! …which is ruined by the filmmakers adding a comic whistle-y sound over it.

I can’t actually decide whether I think Scaramanga’s gun is cool or lame. It’s established by Q that it’s a custom job. As the name of the film implies it’s either made of gold or is at least colored or plated in gold. But it comes in like three pieces so Scaramanga has to put it together before he uses it. In the high def closeup it looks kind of like it’s flimsy.

Ok, this isn’t so much bad as it’s bizarre: So Scaramanga lives in this awesome high-tech island hideout with his girlfriend, a big guy who runs the machines, and Nick Nack, the short-statured man from Fantasy Island who would shout, “The plane! The plane!” Anyway, since Scaramanga is a famous assassin, Nick Nack keeps him on his toes by luring people to the island through this weird funhouse in which Scaramanga must find his golden gun and kill the person. It’s heavily suggested that Nick Nack hopes one day to succeed in having Scaramanga killed so he can inherit his fortune. It’s just weird.

I do like that Netflix presented the movie in 16x9. I don’t know whether or not it was originally shown that way, but I like seeing movies in that format. Yeah, I know. I just blew any credibility I had as a movie nerd. It also looks amazing in high definition.

Once again, Roger Moore is fantastic as Bond, except for the really ghastly sport coat he wears to Scaramanga’s island at the end of the movie. Ugh. Seventies fashion. 

The fight scenes with the martial arts guys was pretty good too, though the karate nieces were a little much. Still though, it really looked like Roger Moore was doing a lot of his own stunts.

I also really dug the British intelligence base in the capsized and rusting ship in the harbor with its eye-twisting crooked layout.

Can’t wait til the next Bond film! The Spy Who Loved Me is the only James Bond film I have never seen. Until then!

1. jwsherrod posted this