007 Journals: The Spy Who Loved Me

Live and Let Die was a high moment for me with the Bond films. Roger Moore's first outing was great and highly entertaining. The Man With the Golden Gun was a little low for me. It had some great moments but overall was a campy mess that is barely surpassed by it's great opening and closing. The Spy Who Loved Me brought things back up for me but one thing I have to point out is that this is the same movie as You Only Live Twice, which luckily was a movie I also liked. Both films start with something being stolen (a spaceship and submarine) by a villain who plans to start World War 3 and each film ends with Bond rescuing captives and two armies battling at the enemies fortress. However even though You Only Live Twice has the iconic Bond villain Blofeld in all of his Dr. Evil glory, I liked The Spy Who Loved Me a lot more.The villain was great and honestly Bond was pretty cold blooded in the way he shoots him multiple times but at least he was able to dispatch this villain this time instead of letting him get away like Blofeld. Bond actually has a couple cold blooded moments as he lets another guy just fall off a roof as well. Came as kind of a shock for Roger Moore's Bond but this movie just takes a slightly darker tone.

Now first thing I want to talk about is the competing agents aspect of the plot. I love the idea that Bond has a Russian rival who is even a female. Barbara Bach is beautiful but her acting is very stiff. I never really believed her as a spy but the script was written well enough that it didn't really matter. For an added bonus we have a side plot that Bond had killed her lover on a previous mission which really adds to the dynamic of their relationship and when it's brought up is a great moment, but sadly I don't feel like they do enough with it but the ending is satisfying with Bond just being suave. Even if it is a little ridiculous it was an added pleasure that I enjoyed. Some of my favorite parts of the movie however were the back and forth tactics they used against each other in Egypt and working together to fight Jaws. Okay now let's talk about him! I know he's a big fan favorite for henchman and I love the idea of Jaws. He's basically a slasher movie villain. An unstoppable giant with a gimmick that makes no sense. Metal teeth would be a huge inconvenience but I was willing to buy it. This guy really is treated like Jason Voorhees for most of the movie. When he first appears it's always dark with flashes of colored light and we get string music ques. He even attacks people like a vampire and honestly the slow movement towards someones neck just always looks awkward to me. This man also literally tears apart a van with his bare hands. I would love to see how Jaws would be handled today where everything would probably feel a little more real and natural. This version was a great henchman and he truly felt imposing but sometimes it was hard not to see it as just a little silly.

Stromberg is a pretty interesting villain and marks Roger Moore's first super villain. His plan is to start World War 3 so everyone will destroy each other with nuclear missiles and he can start a new society under water, as he is a reclusive obsessed with the sea. This is why it's dangerous for the world to have socially awkward billionaires. He has a pretty impressive lair on the water and honestly when some underwater stuff started happening I was getting a little worried and remembering how boring Thunderball was but this time it was all well edited and actually had exciting action scenes. In fact there were a lot of good action scenes in this movie. The underwater battler, the fights with Jaws, but the most impressive was the car vs helicopter fight. This is something you don't see a lot of in today's film making. This would have probably been CG if made today but you can't be the camera shots of the car riding under the helicopter or them driving/flying side by side. There was some great cinematography in this film but during that action scene is where it stood out to me the most. The ending battle of the armies was also the best one to date but it does feel a little repetitive at this point.

Now this film isn't perfect by any means. The submarine car is pretty ridiculous but they go all in with it and make it look pretty believable so I'm willing to forgive it. I did like how we don't hear Q tell Bond what it does but we see him showing him from Barbara Bach's perspective. Jaws is a great henchman but just a little on the goofy side as far as the scene direction. This might also be one of the most schizophrenic scores I've ever heard where it goes from serious orchestral score to 70's synthesizer out of nowhere and just feels out of place. I think Barbara Bach was one of the prettiest but worst acting Bond girls.A scene at the end where a motorboat launches out of the tanker looks really silly and could have been edited better, Did I mention that Jaws also bites a shark to death? Actually that was awesome in a really dumb kind of way. Although this was one of my least favorite cold opens because that parachute is absurd. The ending stinger of them in the escape pod naked is also a little cartoonish. Overall I give The Spy Who Loved me a four out of five. This is one of the good ones and the silly factor doesn't it bring it down that much.