The Man With the Golden Gun, Roger Moore's second outing as James Bond (Live and Let Die was the first), whisks our hero off to Hong Kong, Macau, Thailand, and then the South China Sea in search of a solar energy weapon. His opponent is Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), who rules the roost on a well-fortified island. Scaramanga's aide-de-camp is Nick Nack, played by future Fantasy Island co-star Herve Villechaize. Britt Ekland plays the bikinied Mary Goodnight, whose clumsy efforts to help Bond
thwart Scaramanga are almost as destructive as the elusive solar device. The Man With the Golden Gun was adapted by Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz from Ian Fleming's last James Bond novel, which had to be published posthumously in "rough draft" form. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Roger Moore is a pastry chef's idea of James Bond; but Christopher Lee as the archetype of the evil antagonist makes this 007 outing just about bearable.
The best Bonds, like the car that twirls, were sly without quite getting silly. The best Bonds also had Sean Connery, whose absence is sorely felt here.
Screenwriters Maibaum and Mankiewicz attempted to downplay the gadgetry this time around, but their attempts at adding more humor hinder plot development.
It's all gaudily good, right down to Hervé Villechaize(!), bikini-clad Britt Ekland, and the inimitable Clifton James as the vacationing Sheriff J.W. Pepper.
Definitely not as good as LIVE AND LET DIE, its serial predecessor, but still the good and typical classic 007 flick, with both talkiness and spy thrills strewn and peppered around here and there. The redundant music, unfortunately, started to get on my nerves and made me nearly lose my mind.
July 24, 2011
Alexander Diminiano
Super Reviewer
Decent and eventful enough to keep my eyelids open, but what's with all the bizarre and random occurences? I don't know if it's a common element in the Bond flicks with Moore, but in two out of two that I've seen with him so far, there's so much campiness that its bordeline parodic. I mean, seriously, a villain with
three nipples who was raised in a circus? And that's not even mentioning the creepy-looking midget (sorry, maybe I should say "little person", but that's the actual word they use in the film). I couldn't help but think of Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies, which made me laugh when I wasn't really supposed to. Nice though that the two main Bond girls are both from Sweden. Quite a proud moment for us there. Nevertheless, this is no doubt one of the weakest films in the whole series.
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