To be sure, there are plenty of things about "The Spy Who Loved Me" to enjoy, and like "The Man With The Golden Gun" it's by far an improvement on "Live And Let Die." The sets are frankly stunning, the action is plentiful and reasonably exciting, the end recalls the fantastic climaxes of "Goldfinger" and "You Only Live Twice," and there are some interesting ideas going on with actual character development of the Bond girl.
It also features the very finest in Shatnerian fight choreography.
Of course those ideas don't pay off and are ultimately unsatisfying and borderline insulting, but later films would do it much better. And while it's unfortunate that those elements failed horribly here, it's nice to see them at least trying something the slightest bit interesting with the Bond girl character, whom is almost always portrayed as an insufferable lump of dumb blandness with a target painted on her butt with the words "INSERT BOND HERE" on the bulls-eye.
I give the film credit for that, and like I said it's still an improvement on the preceding Moore films, but within that statement lies the overlying, inescapable problem: It still stars Roger Moore. And while the man does have his fans, I'll never understand it. Like every Bond movie he did, in "The Spy Who Loved Me" Roger Moore is a boring, stiff cream-puff who gives off the impression that he wouldn't last 3 seconds on "American Gladiators," let alone survive a bullet-riddled pursuit down a mountain while on skis, ending in him leaping off a cliff and parachuting to safety.
Is it even worth it for me to inquire as to how he knew he was going to need that?
I think what I like most about "The Spy Who Loved Me" is the scale of it all. It feels really huge, not only with what is at stake but the sets and locations the characters go to. The villain, Stromberg's huge mobile underwater city Atlantis is an inventive, beautiful set, as well as his massive super-tanker Liparus, which is big enough to swallow 3 submarines. Even the henchmen are gigantic, with Richard Kiel making his first appearance as fan-favorite Jaws. All this makes the film seems more epic like "You Only Live Twice," which had the gigantic base in the crater of a volcano and whatnot.
This was the first Roger Moore Bond film I've seen that I was actually saying to myself "That's cool" on occasion. Atlantis, particularly Stromberg's dining room/lounge with the windows looking out at the water, was a very impressive effect which really did a lot to immerse the viewer in this outlandish underwater base which seemed like something out of "The Abyss." And the famous Esprit that was also a submarine is undoubtedly the coolest Bond car since the Aston Martin from "Goldfinger" - even if leads to one of the stupidest gags in the film.
I hate you, Roger Moore.
It's just too bad the actors couldn't have lived up to the scale of the production. Roger Moore is, as I've said, just as bland and obnoxious as ever, but even the villain played by the venerable Curt Jurgens wasn't very memorable. And it wasn't his fault, really. He's slimy enough I suppose but the fact that he's just a crotchety old ocean enthusiast who built an underwater city and wants to blow up the world because he wants to live under the sea (which he already does anyway) makes him fairly hard to care about. I guess his motivation is to force everyone else to do the same, but he's a loner, so even that doesn't make any sense. You'd think he'd just stay underwater and be content without killing everyone.
I mentioned earlier the Bond girl having some interesting elements going on, and that is true. Barbara Bach plays a Russian spy named Agent Triple X, and right off the bat you can tell that any attempt at depth of character is in the septic tank based on her name alone. Her name itself implies porn. What self respecting country would code name their agents that? Did they make her a secret agent strictly for the purposes of having sex? Was she aware of it? Did she go through spy school and all that intense training, only to be given a name like Triple X and was told "Okay, comrade. Now get to screwing" by her superiors? With a name like that it's hard to think otherwise.
More countries should name their secret agents after what they do. James Bond could be code named Agent Kaboom.
The issue is that we're supposed to believe that Triple X is capable of getting through "The Spy Who Loved Me" without banging James Bond, which, like I said earlier, based on her name is a statistical impossibility. Early in the film Bond kills a Russian agent who we find out was Triple X's lover, and she swears vengeance on whoever did it. During the course of the movie Bond and Triple X are forced to partner up, and when she finds out that Bond was the guy who killed her boyfriend, she professes her hatred of James and promises him that as soon as the mission is over she will take him out.
That is not only a load of rubbish, as her name is Triple X and she's a Bond girl, but it also makes her really stupid as well. Letting a guy like James Bond know that you're going to try and kill him and giving him the exact moment when that promise will go into effect is probably not a wise move. Any normal secret agent would probably put a slug between their eyes immediately after they finished shooting the villain. But since it's James Bond he puts something else of his between something else of hers instead, because he's James Bond and her name is Triple X. And naturally she forgives him for no reason other than that the script requires that every single female on the planet has a clinical need to bang him. I guess that overrides the fact that he killed your boyfriend.
You can go ahead and attempt to make her a deep character, but you still named her Agent Triple X. We're not buying it.
I think more than anything else that's the biggest problem with what could have been the most interesting element of the film. I do like the idea of Bond and a Russian agent needing to work together despite deep hatred and fist-clenched vengeance perpetually making its presence known, but they really don't do anything with it, mostly forgetting about it with the exception of the scene she swears vengeance on him and the scene at the end where she forgives him out of nowhere. She doesn't even shoot him a nasty look in between or anything. If I didn't know better I'd say she was never more than two seconds away from dry-humping his leg. Then again, it may have been because Barbara Bach was a horrendously bad actress in this.
Despite all of that, I can't be too mad at "The Spy Who Loved Me." It's actually a pretty solid movie, even with Roger Moore and the fact that the title doesn't make any sense since I'm pretty sure James Bond does not love Triple X, nor does Triple X love Bond. I'm not sure that I'd call it his best, but at the very least he's going to cool locations which provide plenty of action beats, giving it a brisk pace and making it not boring. And at least he's not in space. Although I sense utter fear and rage on the horizon for me.
I know I've mentioned this before, but man were trailers bad back in the day. I officially apologize to every fade in/fade out I've complained about. At least it provides a tempo.
THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Spy Who Loved Me" is close to the best you're going to get as far as the Roger Moore Bond movies go. At the very least it's not dull, although the acting is atrocious and the villains lackluster apart from Jaws, who is lackluster himself but is so huge that his presence makes up for it. One of the only Bond outings starring Roger Moore that I'd say is worth checking out. As we see in the next entry...it got far, far worse.
JAMES BOND
WILL RETURN IN
MOONRAKER
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