mark.waltz There will always be debates over who was the best Bond, and I cannot come up with an answer that would settle the argument for the billions of fans. I grew up seeing Sean Connery on TV and Roger Moore in the movies. I like to think of each of them as different men named James Bond, perhaps cousins, both going into the same profession or having the same alias, or each be working in an alternate universe. With the recent death of Roger Moore, I'm starting once again to revisit the series, finding Connery to be more action based (with women and martini's on the side) and Moore playing Bond as if he was a 70's version of Cary Grant, mixing action in with the martinis and women and including some wonderful verbal comedy and a dab of farce.In his second stint as James Bond, he's traveling around to find the assassin who may or may not be out to kill him. This takes him all over the world, locations I won't mention because it's too much fun to discover those yourself. What I will reveal is that Moore pretty much turns the entire world into his own version of Six Flags, whether chasing (or being chased) down an exotic canal, being pestered by a kid selling ivory elephants (and getting rid of him in the most amusing way) and later driving along with tourist Clifton James who seems straight out of "The Dukes of Hazard" and gets his share of laughs with some stereotypical hick humor.Then, there's the villains, or the presumed ones, in this case, Christopher Lee and diminutive Herve Villichaize ("Fantasy Island") who has a few surprising moments of his own. The women are varied and many, covering many different nationalities, and the sexuality of the film is handled with class and humor. Moore gets his hands filled with more than just the villains and women, at one point dealing with a sumo wrestler in a very private area, and even getting to disguise himself with a third nipple. This is a lot of fun from start to finish, and I remember now why back in my youth, a new Bond film always meant a trip to the cinema, back when you didn't need aspirin to deal with excessive noisy sound effects.

Derekflint-726-995720 I should preface this by saying I've been a hard-core James Bond fan since my first viewing of GOLDFINGER on the big screen, back in 1964, at the tender age of 10. I've seen the Bond movies at their best, and then with this title in mind, definitely at their worst. I was in the Navy back in 1974, at the Great Lakes Naval training facility, and my buddy and I used to go into Chicago on the weekends. We'd go to the USO, where they would give us sandwiches and cokes, and sometimes free tickets to the movies. I saw that MWTGG was opening that Friday, and asked my buddy if he wanted to go see it. He never saw a James Bond movie in his life (!), and so I told him that he was in for the time of his life! Anyway to make a long story short, he was dazzled and had the time of his life, while I sat in my chair, cringing at what I was seeing on the screen and wondering, "what have they done to my James Bond?" I should add that I didn't badmouth the movie to my friend, since he had such a great time, but just wondered to myself, "is this the end of the series?"If I could express my feelings about MWTGG, I'd say that it was the closest a James Bond film came to be like one of Columbia's Dean Martin Matt Helm movies. I remember whenever a new 007 film premiered, it was like Christmas time! I sensed things were starting to go wrong when DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER came out. Production values were down, bits of slapstick humor we're starting to be thrown in and the writing just wasn't up to the previous standards. The Bond movies were starting to copy trends, instead of setting them, as the previous films had. LIVE AND LET DIE came out, and for some reason , which I can't explain, everything worked. Although, with the debut of Roger Moore, we were definitely seen a new kind of James Bond. The movie was a lot of fun, and the small bits of comedy were reigned in by the overall action and adventure. Followed up by GOLDEN GUN, however, and everything seemed to just spiral downward. I can't go into details, without a ton of spoilers, but we were seeing , what should have been a classic with the great Christopher Lee as the villain, a movie that, like all the other studios were churning out, a parody of the series, itself ! Fortunately, the excellent THE SPY WHO LOVED ME followed, and the series got back on track.

bowmanblue The Roger Moore Bond era came in for a fair bit of criticism; not only did he have to compete with Sean Connery's interpretation of the superspy, but, by adding more wry humour to the franchise, people saw his films as too comic to be believable. 'The Man With the Golden Gun' is Moore's second outing and I think it's possibly the film that bridges the gap between dark and comic, incorporating elements of both, but never leaning directly towards either.For a start we have no hollowed-out lair for a Persian cat-stroking super villain to reside in. Instead, we simply have a rival hit-man who has his sights set on being the best in the world. Of course that means removing one 007 in the process. So it's far more of a simple premise when compared to the typical plans for world domination that Bond has to thwart on a day to day basis. Christopher Lee plays the rival hit-man, Scaramanga, with typical charm and menace, making him almost appear as Bond's 'dark side.' There's plenty of near misses between the two in what could be described as a 'cat and mouse' type affair until the inevitable climax.So, the plot is simple and deadly in nature, but it wouldn't be a Roger Moore Bond film without humour. As I mentioned, the jokes never really detract from the obvious danger Bond is in at all times. Scaramanga's primary henchman 'Knick-knack' may be small in stature, but more than makes up for his lack of size in terms of brutality and mischief (sometimes so much so you could be mistaken for watching a David Lynch film as the 'arena' set during the duel is pretty psychedelic – and, when you mix it with a cheeky but mysterious dwarf, you have a precursor to Twin Peaks if ever I saw one!). The jokes hit the mark and about the 'silliest' the film gets is the return of Sheriff JW Pepper who some people will most likely find irritating and detracting from the overall story (however, I really enjoyed his over-the-topness!).So, combine the darkness of the Connery era with some Moore humour and you have a winning combination. Naturally, you also have the beautiful locations, exciting chase scenes and Britt Ekland as the obligatory Bond girl. But if you don't want to get quite as silly as Bond making Tarzan noises while swinging through a jungle (Octopussy), yet don't want quit the levels of brutality displayed by Connery when he strangles a woman with her own bikini (Diamonds Are Forever) then this is a perfect in between Bond film that should entertain all.

connorbbalboa *Sigh* I know. You all must think I hate Roger Moore as Bond. I don't. He is capable as James Bond and when he and the script get it completely right, like with The Spy Who Loved Me, he can pull off his sense of humor very well. It's just that most of the movies he has been in really are quite bad. Actually, this one isn't as crappy as many of the others; I would rank it third behind The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only. It still is quite mediocre.In this one, Bond is investigating a plot by the villain Francisco Scaramanga (the awesome Christopher Lee), who personally wants to kill him. Along the way, he tries to avoid sleeping with the pretty hot, but pretty useless Mary Goodnight (Why did the Moore films have most of the dumbest Bond girl names in the franchise?), gets into a car chase with the annoying Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) from the previous film, Live and Let Die, in the passenger seat and the famous "slide whistle" car spin, gets put into a martial arts school (don't ask), and makes out with Scaramanga's girlfriend (Maude Adams), who wants Bond to put him down.Christopher Lee is the actor I love watching most in the movie. He does not have a bad line or moment. He's just the absolute king here. The sad thing is, besides killing Bond, his plot isn't that much to care about. He merely wants to use a certain device to control solar power, its prices, and who gets it. It's not really a threatening plot. Like with the heroin in Live and Let Die, not everyone uses solar power. Plus, what is he going to do with the money? He seems to have a content life just challenging people to death matches with his one-bullet golden gun. Look, I'm fine with Bond villain schemes that aren't about taking over the world. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have liked films like Casino Royale and Skyfall so much. For them to work, though, a personal scheme has to hurt a lot of people for it to be a major concern, and really, the only people who will be affected by this scheme are the really rich guys that actually have solar power and the people who are targets for personal assassinations that Scaramanga gets payed for.Moore is better as Bond here, and doesn't calculate his performance so much. When he tries to be cold, however, like when he interrogates Scaramanga's girlfriend, he isn't very organic. Connery would have brought more brute strength and cold-hearted lust to it, considering that his version of Bond seems to be quite at home with moments like this. Britt Ekland as Goodnight does not do a very good job and is probably the worst actor in the film. She's pretty hot, like many of the Moore Bond girls, but useless and when Bond is trying to recover that solar power device, she almost gets him killed or seriously injured. One other character here is a smaller person named Nick Nack who serves Scaramanga. I don't understand what he wants, and besides that, he's also quite annoying. The most confounding moment is when he tells Bond that he'll inherit everything from Scaramanga if he kills him. Wasn't Nick Nack supposed to be Scaramanga's friend? But it turns out that he was still loyal to Scaramanga as he tries to kill Bond after he has sex with Goodnight. It's just confusing.Besides that, some of the action is fun, although the whole situation with the martial arts school has no purpose, and Moore's improved performance certainly helps, but the uninteresting secondary scheme of the villain and the goofy bits that seem to be a trademark of most of the Moore films don't. Bottom line, The Man With the Golden Gun has its moments, but it is very average.