Octopussy (1983)

**One of the best of the James Bond series**
Forget the dour, bland rubbish of the Daniel Craig era - Octopussy is how a James Bond film should be! **FUN!** The franchise has always been over the top ever since we saw _Sean Connery's James Bond wearing a strap on plastic seagull hat in the classic Goldfinger_ and Octopussy continues that absurdity only this time with Roger Moore.
So anyway, here 007 is on the trail of a smuggling ring whilst also trying to stop a crazed Russian general (Steven Berkoff in an amazing performance) from starting WWIII.
Beautiful looking film makes the most of the India. Some great stunt work - including a finale on top of a plane, John Barry providing a lush score, lashings of humour and a fair amount of tension - Bond disarming a nuclear weapon in a circus tent is very effective. A very _violent_ film - here, we can see Roger Moore's 007 shooting a young Russian soldier through the forehead.
_Positively shocking_!
You probably get the general idea by now that I like this one a lot. Great Bond film.
- Potential Kermode

I don't mind Moore as Bond, he's certainly not my favorite, I'm not the biggest fan of the silliness, but he has some 007 films that would make my top 10 list and...
... this is NOT one of them.
In the only thing I want to write in this review is "It is so unbelievably bad." And not like Moonraker way to over-the-top even for a 007 film bad, but just absolutely horrible bad.
And Moore was clearly a bit too old to play 007 at this point. So he kind of looked like Grandpa 007. And that doesn't work too well for stunts (ask Liam Neeson), it sort of makes it unbelievable.
And then there is the plot that was a little too.... done before to be really good. It took elements from several other 007 films, strung them all together, and hoped no one would notice.
And by Octopussy, the Moore era silliness was starting to wear thin, especially after films like The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only, that underplayed that aspect enough to make truly great installments to the franchise.