It's not a
coincidence that this has been my tardiest non-weekend review so far - this
movie, well....it sucks. I mean, really sucks. You know you're in for a shitty
time when the pre-credits sequence has Bond tracking down and (seemingly)
killing Blofeld for murdering his wife in the last movie, and he exhibits not
the barest hint of any emotion but smirky self-satisfaction during the entire
process. So let me just bullet point some shit and get this over with.
Connery was already checked out during You Only Live Twice so I don't even know how to characterize his performance here. It is a million times lazier than that last one. The producers offered him a bunch of money to come back to the role after he left it, and he gives exactly that kind of performance.
Bond has one really cool fist fight with a dude in a moving elevator. Connery is completely engaged during it, and it's a pretty tense scene. This is probably the last nice thing I will say.
"Tiffany Case" is this movie's Bond girl. She's American, and she is just awful, a semi-capable woman with an agenda during the first half and then a bumbling fuck-up in the second half.
The secondary girl, who Bond doesn't even manage to close the deal with, is named Plenty O'Toole. I'd say I hope this is the naming nadir, but I know better. She's played by Natalie Wood's little sister and she has big tits, which is quite literally the only nice thing I can say about her performance, because she is an irritating harpy and she dies quickly.
There are two assassins working for the Big Bad who it is pretty clearly implied are totally gaybones for each other. They're supposed to be menacing, I guess, but one of them looks like Rob Reiner in his Meathead era and they keep referring to each other by name and it is so stupid, a parody of the "pair of interesting assassins" trope.
The aforementioned Big Bad is, of course, Blofeld, who managed to survive Bond's attempt on his life by using a body double. Whatever. Charles Grey's performance as Blofeld is so sad and small that it's almost better that they had to write the character out of the series, because eventually he'd be played by Ryan O'Neal or something.
Jimmy Dean plays a semi-prominent role. The sausage guy. Yeah. That's the sort of thing that happens in this movie.
There is a car chase where Bond's vehicle is some sort of moon lander (don't ask) and they don't even remotely pull off the trick of suggesting that it can move more than about 15 miles per hour. The chasing bad guys in cars keep crashing anyway, because the plot demands it.
The casino Circus Circus is featured heavily in one scene and if there is a less James Bond casino, I don't know what it is. I mean, Las Vegas is better in theory than in practice for a Bond flick (LV casinos are all slot machines and neon lights, especially in the early-70's, lost weekend era, whereas Bond's natural habitat is at a quiet baccarat table, with at least one and possibly several hot and easy women admiring his prowess at the game) but even by those low standards, Circus Circus is still the worst possible choice. An elephant plays a slot machine which, I feel like I'm repeating myself, is the sort of thing that happens in this piece of shit movie. The movie also features a scene with the world's most cliched old-Vegas insult comic, and it is dire.
The plot ends up involving a space laser. It blows shit up from space. This is not intended to be funny.
Sexist/Racist - definitely sexist. All the women in this movie are idiots, really aggressively stupid. Although there is one scene where a magician turns a black woman into a gorilla, so it gets points on that score at least.
I think Bond only beds Tiffany, although I could be missing someone. He definitely doesn't get to boink Ms. O'Toole and that's a shame because she is super hot but, again, really, really terrible at acting.
Ugh. The Connery era has ended, with the biggest thud imaginable.
Connery was already checked out during You Only Live Twice so I don't even know how to characterize his performance here. It is a million times lazier than that last one. The producers offered him a bunch of money to come back to the role after he left it, and he gives exactly that kind of performance.
Bond has one really cool fist fight with a dude in a moving elevator. Connery is completely engaged during it, and it's a pretty tense scene. This is probably the last nice thing I will say.
"Tiffany Case" is this movie's Bond girl. She's American, and she is just awful, a semi-capable woman with an agenda during the first half and then a bumbling fuck-up in the second half.
The secondary girl, who Bond doesn't even manage to close the deal with, is named Plenty O'Toole. I'd say I hope this is the naming nadir, but I know better. She's played by Natalie Wood's little sister and she has big tits, which is quite literally the only nice thing I can say about her performance, because she is an irritating harpy and she dies quickly.
There are two assassins working for the Big Bad who it is pretty clearly implied are totally gaybones for each other. They're supposed to be menacing, I guess, but one of them looks like Rob Reiner in his Meathead era and they keep referring to each other by name and it is so stupid, a parody of the "pair of interesting assassins" trope.
The aforementioned Big Bad is, of course, Blofeld, who managed to survive Bond's attempt on his life by using a body double. Whatever. Charles Grey's performance as Blofeld is so sad and small that it's almost better that they had to write the character out of the series, because eventually he'd be played by Ryan O'Neal or something.
Jimmy Dean plays a semi-prominent role. The sausage guy. Yeah. That's the sort of thing that happens in this movie.
There is a car chase where Bond's vehicle is some sort of moon lander (don't ask) and they don't even remotely pull off the trick of suggesting that it can move more than about 15 miles per hour. The chasing bad guys in cars keep crashing anyway, because the plot demands it.
The casino Circus Circus is featured heavily in one scene and if there is a less James Bond casino, I don't know what it is. I mean, Las Vegas is better in theory than in practice for a Bond flick (LV casinos are all slot machines and neon lights, especially in the early-70's, lost weekend era, whereas Bond's natural habitat is at a quiet baccarat table, with at least one and possibly several hot and easy women admiring his prowess at the game) but even by those low standards, Circus Circus is still the worst possible choice. An elephant plays a slot machine which, I feel like I'm repeating myself, is the sort of thing that happens in this piece of shit movie. The movie also features a scene with the world's most cliched old-Vegas insult comic, and it is dire.
The plot ends up involving a space laser. It blows shit up from space. This is not intended to be funny.
Sexist/Racist - definitely sexist. All the women in this movie are idiots, really aggressively stupid. Although there is one scene where a magician turns a black woman into a gorilla, so it gets points on that score at least.
I think Bond only beds Tiffany, although I could be missing someone. He definitely doesn't get to boink Ms. O'Toole and that's a shame because she is super hot but, again, really, really terrible at acting.
Ugh. The Connery era has ended, with the biggest thud imaginable.
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