Octopussy (1983)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  6 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: By this point in the series, Roger Moore had slowly gone from a cold and breezy 007 to the gentleman's Bond who you can't help loving and rooting for, but in Octopussy we see his feathers ruffled far more than usual. Indeed despite being remembered for its silly name and titular island of women, this is easily the most serious spy-thriller in the series since Live and Let Die, as we follow Bond unravelling the jewellery snuggling of a businessman and Russian general gone rogue which emerges as something far more sinister. He's always a step behind rather than right on the case, and the high stakes unravelled therein force him into some pretty desperate places and that often makes for a rather edge-of-your-seat kind of experience. The final act in particular will have you really rooting for Bond as he desperately rushes to save the day, and some of the set-pieces are a real step up from director John Glen's previous effort with some genuinely series-besting stunt work.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: For a film that plays things a little more intensely than the series had gotten used to, things might have worked a little more effectively if the plot was slightly easier to comprehend. When Bond figures things out, it's not always the audience catching on with him...
  
  VERDICT: Often misremembered for a few silly elements, 'Octopussy,' actually pushes Moore's Bond to a far harsher, more desperate place with a high-stakes spy-thriller story that always has Bond one step behind.

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