The James Bond Rewatch: Current Movie - SPECTRE

[noir_solitude]

Moonraker
They giveth and they taketh away! So after a couple of duds: DAFE, LALD, TMWTGG we got the brilliant The Spy Who Loved Me. At the end of that they promised Bond would return in For Your Eyes Only. Then Star Wars was released! Now I’m a big sci-fi fan and if it wasn’t for Star Wars then the Alien script probably would never have been picked up. But there was a slew of atrocious Star Wars rip-offs in the late 70’s. Ok so its not as bad as Starcrash, Battle Beyond the Stars et al but its clear that its trying to cash in on the Star Wars histaria.
Theme tune is bloody awful! From what I’ve read it was thrust on Bassey at short notice.
The same scriptwriter as TSWLM, its just a reshash but in space instead of the ocean. Jaws makes a welcome return but he’s immediately become comical than intimidating.
Drax is a better villain than Stromberg but again he’s pretty similar in style. Lois Childs impresses as Dr Goodhead but I’d prefer if they could keep the innuendo names for the minor conquest characters. It just undermines a strong and intelligent character here.
The G-Force simulator scene is the best part of the film, brillianlty acted by Moore.
I can’t help but feel if you are going to have a stupid Bond in space idea you may as well go full out with it. Its only the last half hour that it becomes sci-fi which it was no doubt marketed on. Two years after Star Wars and huge increase in budget on TSWLM it ends up looking worse than both.
Overall its not a bad film but it’s a real lazy paint by number production. Wasted opportunity to do something a bit different here.
The “I think he’s attempting re-entry, Sir” probably won’t ever be beaten for the ending double entendre though :)
I’m being generous at 4/10.