The Spy Who Loved Me is still the best
James Bond movie of
Roger Moore's career and ranks right up there with the best in the series. Now, I may be somewhat biased in that statement because the first Bond film I ever saw in the theater was in fact this movie, and it's also why I still say that Moore is the definitive
James Bond. He is who I grew up with. When I eventually got into the older (earlier)
Bond films from the
Sean Connery run up to
Moore's earlier
Bond flicks, I thought they were good, but not up to par with
Spy Who Loved Me. Over the years I have come to appreciate
Connery's run and there are in fact some great films he did in the series.
As for
Spy Who Loved Me, in spite of some serious design flaws as well as how the movie was shot and edited together, for me it still holds up. One of the funny things about revisiting older films from the 70's is seeing how much different film styles were compared to today's standard. At times this movie does seem a bit slow because of the long, drawn out scenes, especially the whole Pyramid scenes. Even the way they had '
Jaws' appear out of silhouette with the track lighting and the music was just downright cheesy and yet I can't do without that particular scene. Speaking of
Jaws, he is still the best Henchman in
Bond history and that includes
Oddjob too.
Rounding out what makes this movie a winner is
Barbara Bach as
Agent XXX. Come on, has there ever been a hotter
Bond chick than her? Score one for her shower scene too. Yummy!! Loved
Stromberg's lair,
The Atlantis. The only other lair that comes close to this one is the hollowed-out Volcano in
Goldfinger.
I highly recommend this as a
Rent if not an outright
Buy.