1977 - The Spy Who Loved Me
Alternate Title - The Spy Who Gave Me Chlamydia
PG - 125 minutes
Director - Lewis Gilbert
Stars - Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jurgens
Titties. One of the first things you see in this movie is a wall of a submarine plastered with pictures of titties. Most of the time tits are subtle in these movies but this time they said fuck it.
Yet again Bond has sex with a woman and the second he leaves she calls her friends to kill him instead of just having the plan be that she slits his goddamn throat during sex. Their back-up plan leads to an exciting downhill skiing scene which culminates in Bond flying off of a cliff and pulling a parachute chord at the last second. Cue the music.
The plot is that a nuclear submarine has been stolen and both Bond and Russian agent XXX are sent in to find out information. Agent XXX’s fuck-buddy has been killed in action by Bond during the ski chase. We are left to assume this because they don’t do a very good job explaining that her lover is the one Bond shot in the chest with a ski stick-rocket. Yes, a rocket.
We meet the villain, Karl Stromberg, who has an underwater building and has coordinated the plan to steal the nuclear submarines. I consider his introductory scene part 1 of 2 of scenes in which a woman is brutally murdered to the sound of classical music. The second part is in Moonraker. We meet Jaws who is assigned to tracking a piece of microfilm and killing anyone that attempts to go near it. There is another henchmen but he doesn’t have metal teeth so seriously, fuck that guy. He looks like a mix between Michael Chiklis and Don Rickles.
Bond is sent to Egypt and is immediately sent to the only place in Egypt anyone would recognize, the pyramids. Jaws kills XXX’s other friend like a metal vampire. For some reason Jaws loves biting necks despite not being a vampire and only having metal teeth.
Barbara Bach, the actress that plays XXX hasn’t worked since 1987 and it’s clear to me why she gave it up. She doesn’t even attempt to express emotions or sway from monotone. She’s pretty and is willing to show the maximum amount of cleavage. That pretty much sums up why she’s in this movie.
I swear Bond is looking for father figures. Every Bond villain in these early movies has an elderly villain in which Bond talks to for hours on end even though they both know they are against each other entirely.
This movie contains a car that once it hits the water turns into a submarine. I wish I was kidding. Bond uses it to go to the underwater building of Stromberg. Once they check out the building they head back for the beach and the car emerges as a regular car once it hit’s the sand. This leads to a man doing a cliché double-take at his alcohol after he sees this wacky sight.
For the entire set-up of this movie being about Bond killing XXX’s lover, almost zero attention is given to it until the third act. Even after they discuss it, it simply does not fucking matter at all. Not even a little bit. Why bother including it at all?
1 hour and 23 minutes into this 2 hour and 5 minute movie is where the final set-piece happens. Bond is aboard a submarine and Stromberg has a submarine-eating ship and it does its job. Stromberg takes the entire crew hostage including Bond and XXX. The rest of this movie is simply machine gun fire at an almost nonstop pace. Bond disassembles a nuclear bomb like he’s fucking MacGuyver. Bond then assembles a jet-ski from a fucking duffle bag and he looks goddamn ridiculous riding it toward Stromberg’s lair. This results in the villain’s death. It’s one of the most insane boss scenes I’ve ever seen. Bond shoots Stromberg in the dick to death. Well, it probably would have killed him without Bond shooting him a few more times. The dick. Shot him in the dick.
The rest of the movie is no surprise. Bond rescues XXX from the underwater building. Jaws kills a shark by biting it to death and the underwater building is blown up. Our heroes float to the surface in an escape pod while XXX wears basically nothing but her nipples. Again, she isn’t wearing an expression on her face at all so it’s all you really have to look at.
Overall, it’s good but not great. Way too much of this movie is spent on the ship after it eats the submarine. I got to the point where I couldn’t stand to watch another underpaid extra shoot a machine gun toward something off screen. Good theme song but it sounds more like a song used to sell tampons than a Bond theme. The villain had a decent scheme which is to destroy all the land on earth so that he can use his underwater city. Apparently he just wants to be the supreme landlord. This one is worth watching just for the Bond Vs. Jaws fight scene which results in a cartoon style ending.