Octopussy (1983)

Budget 27.5 million. Opening Dates: UK June 6, 1983; US June 10, 1983

Worldwide Box Office $183.7 million

Originally Written
Friday, November 17, 2006

Roger Moore begins to show his age in the 13th installment of 007, causing even the Bond girls to begin to get a little older. Octopussy doesn't offer the stellar Bond moments that we are all used to and ends up turning into almost a parody of the franchise, making this installment by far the corniest and the worst Bond film to date.

 

Bond is sent to India to look into the death of a fellow British agent killed over a rare Faberge egg. As it turns out the Faberge egg is a fake and is only a small piece behind a rather large jewelry smuggling operation headed by the lovely Octopussy. Octopussy and her group of lovely women are using different ventures such as a shipping, and a circus as cover-ups for the very large jewelry smuggling operation. But unbeknown to Bond or Octopussy the jewelry operation is in and of itself a cover-up for something even bigger.

Behind the scenes Octopussy is being betrayed by her own right hand man, Kamal Khan who is in league with a Russian General named Orlov. Orlov is a renegade whose goal is to advance the territory of the Soviet Union. Khan and Orlov use Octopussy's circus as a cover-up and load a bomb onto the circus train headed for a US military base. The plan is to unexpectedly incite a world war that would lead to the expansion of the Soviet Union, and Bond is the only one who can stop it in time!

Octopussy hits a new low in the Bond franchise as all the great action and adventure you expect from a Bond film is overwhelmed by horrible acting, and an extremely bad script. There is action here but it is so unbelievably ridiculous that it ruins the film. A jungle chase is ruined by Bond swinging from a vine screaming like Tarzan; the raid on the palace near the end of the film is ruined by the incredibly corny entrance of Bond & Q in a hot air balloon with a big British flag, not to mention the raid was done by a bunch of women who were supposedly beating the crap out of everyone. Finally, and this solidifies my complaints, the action is ruined in one of the final scenes where Bond chases down one of the villains attempting to escape by jumping on top of his airplane and holding on while it's in flight! This is followed by a scene of hand-to-hand combat with Bond is grasping onto the plane for dear life.

Accompanying the bad action is a horribly written script, some of the worst dialogue I have been forced to witness in a Bond film and the once again recycled plot line of inciting a world war. The villains were all horrible and the Bond girls where equally awful and middle aged. Bond going to the circus and dressing up as a clown took this edition to the point of no return, and made Roger Moore look pretty ridiculous as Bond. Throughout all these Roger Moore "adventures" I continue to here myself say, "Sean Connery would have never done that", and that's not in a good way. The only memorable aspect of this film is how absolutely corny it is, surprising it's still watchable but if you’re expecting some grand adventure and an interesting plot line look elsewhere. Roger Moore has reached his age of expiration with this one, one of the only Bond films where the poster out weighs the movie, a movie that is about as close to B-movie territory the franchise can possibly get.

4/10