Movie Review - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

You may wonder why there's been a sudden thirteen-year leap from the last movie that was reviewed. Don't forget that I said I was going to review the better and more iconic James Bond movies. Not that I'm saying the ones in between weren't good, but they weren't big. They weren't awesome and epic. They weren't The Spy Who Loved Me.

I think a little bit of background is in order. Sean Connery, the first actor to play James Bond, left the 007 scene after his 1967 movie You Only Live Twice, which was mediocre at best. Some unlikeable Australian guy named George Lazenby took the helm, did a terrible job, and Sean Connery returned for one film after Lazenby's before calling it quits for good (but not really). Roger Moore, a good old bona fide British man who had been in the running since the franchise started, picked up the next movie and starred in two of the campiest Bond movies to date before finally reaching this real gem.

The Spy Who Loved Me is an espionage thriller about Bond on a mission to thwart the plans of an evil genius bent on world domination by kidnapping submarines and keeping them in his lair (go figure, right?). And despite a pretty cheesy plot and an even cheesier funky 70's soundtrack, this movie actually is pretty exciting for its time. The opening scene (the latter half of which can be seen here) is considered among fans to be one of the best in the series, and the stunts are all incredibly real, all the way to the jaw-dropping end. The story is actually multi-faceted and pretty deep, and the movie brings along a real colorful cast of characters from the beautiful Russian agent Anya to the holy-crap-he-scares-me-every-time henchman with HUGE metal teeth known simply as Jaws. The run time is a little over two hours, so the film never seems rushed trying to get the plot across.

Although this is a Roger Moore Bond film and these are the ones known for their wackiness and campiness, Moore manages to tone it down a little and turn out to be a pretty hard-edged, suave Bond, which is a surprise to anyone who's ever watched any of his other James Bond movies. Namely, this one: