The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the few films that Moore Haters (like me) sometimes like. To be honest, I'm not sure why.
As the 10th film in the series, and one not at all beholden to the original text (Fleming allowed them to use the title but none of the plot), someone apparently made the decision to remake some of the hits from previous films. While the pre-titles ski sequence is excellent and has become appropriately iconic, the rest of the film is a bit of a damp squib, with a nothingy villain who barely features, a Soviet-spy Bond girl almost as unrealistic as The World is Not Enough's nuclear scientist, and a plot more recycled than usual -- those who call it a remake of You Only Live Twice aren't far wrong.
Egypt looks stunning, Jaws is a good invention, parts are entertaining, but it's not Moore's best (though is surely better than much of what was to come). As the theme song says, nobody does it better... except Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. Sorry Roger.
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People who hate Roger Moore are people who take James Bond far too seriously.
You're the equivalent of those people on Outpost Gallifrey who always go on with words like "Dark", "Gritty", and "Gravitas".
I, for one, think he's brilliant. So there.
I am not :(
I don't think you have to take Bond too seriously to dislike Moore. I think Connery or Brosnan had the balance right, or more right than Moore did. I do like the Dalton and Craig films, but Dalton can be too serious and Craig's Bond is a reinvention that merits a higher level of believability.
But just to clarify what I meant, I perhaps ought to have said "People who hate Roger Moore are people who think James Bond films ought to be serious".
The Moore films were clearly fun-loving romps, which I appreciated, but evidently a large number of Serious Bond Fans didn't approve of. Moore played the role as a total caricature, which was perfect for the films he was in. Ridiculous plots, OTT acting, and some wonderful facial expressions from Moore.
The other Bond actors played the role straight (although the character has a dry sense of humour), and while this works well sometimes, other times the ridiculousness of the story makes it hard to take a serious Bond seriously. Craig's Bond is a straight Bond in a believable film, and it works brilliantly. Similarly for Dalton, bulletproof cellos aside. Brosnan's straight Bond was wonderful in the fantastic Goldeneye, but add in the Space Lasers and Ice Castles and it all goes tits up.
I don't have a problem with Bond as a serious movie or as a fun silly movie, but I do have a problem with a silly movie that expects me to take it seriously. Whereas the Moore-haters problem is wanting to take seriously a silly movie that asks for no such treatment.
A sensible position to hold. Unfortunately, most fans of anything are far from sensible.
Moore's OTT performance is more suited to the silliness of his films, but I'd argue that part of the reason they're so silly is that Moore plays it that way and the films adapted to it. The other reason is probably that OHMSS was the most serious film since From Russia With Love and it flopped (which was down to Lazenby rather than the film itself, of course).
Personally, I prefer my Bonds with the silliness at least toned down -- as I was saying the other day, I can even accept most of Die Another Day (though I haven't seen it for three or four years now...), but the worst excesses of the Moore films leave me cold.
That said, I think I think I dislike Moore more than I do (oh, that's a confusing sentence). I've watched Live and Let Die, Man With the Golden Gun, Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy within the last 18-or-so months and the only one I really disliked was TSWLM, and even that was half decent. Not a huge fan of LaLD (it's OK) or FYEO though, unusually, whereas I really enjoyed Octopussy.
Clearly, I refuse to be pigeon-holed alongside the other Moore Haters (I'll have a hole all to myself, thanks).
How much abuse do you think I'd get if I posted my above theory on a Bond site like that CommanderBond one or whatever it's called?
Comparable to the loonies on OG?
I don't imagine they can be anything like as bad as Who fans. Who fans are sci-fi fans -- and, these days, young too -- and they're always the worst.
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