Cheap Octopussy (DVD) (Roger Moore, Maud Adams) (John Glen (II)) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Octopussy

Roger Moore's Best James Bond film.
Octopussy was, in my opinion, the best of the seven James Bond films that Roger Moore had done. He was very confident and great for his style of James Bond in the film. Personally I like the scenes in Germany the best, with Bond fighting an enemy on top of a moving train, the chase to get to a nuclear bomb located on a US Airforce Base, among others. Another good thing of this movie, is that the composer, John Barry, was on top of his league doing the excellent score, including the title track, "All Time High" sung beautifully by Rita Coolidge. Overall, this is an excellent movie. For the DVD version of the movie (which I definitely prefer over VHS), you get many treats and specials, including the "All Time High" music video, a Behind the Scenes documentary, TV spots, movie trailers, etc. A great DVD available for a great movie.

---

Octopussy good for you Roger
This is Roger Moore's second best Bond movie and was just about as good as his definitive, "The Man with the Golden Gun." It almost managed to deliver as many laughs as "Golden Gun" but it fell a slightly short. However, it did have its moments. It does contain the best scene from the entire series. Bond swings from a vine and gives this terrific Tarzan yell. I don't know how Roger got it so perfect. Bond uses some cool disguises like a gorilla suit and an alligator outfit that turns into a boat. The story is a little confusing and gets jumbled up in subplots involving lookalike jewelry and smuggled nuclear devices. You don't know who is good or who is bad. It depends on your point of view.

The score by John Barry is a little weak. It didn't have the well thought out themes developed like he did for his powerful yet whimsical "The Man with the Golden Gun." He did do a good job scoring the scenes involving the Soviets, which has a rich eastern European flavor.

The film does use elements from the short stories "Octopussy" and "The Property of a Lady" by Ian Fleming as a jumping board. We had not seen that for some time. I think "Live and Let Die" was the last Bond film that resembled anything written by Fleming.

Louis Jourdan as Kamal was excellent and gives a performance that rivals Christopher Lee's Scaramanga. It was also good to see many of the regular cast members return for this one. Desmond Llewelyn as "Q," Walter Gotell as Gogol, Geoffrey Keen as the Minister of Defense, Eva Reuber-Staier as Rublevitch, Jeremy Bullock as Smithers and Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny all reprised their roles. Robert Brown replaced Bernard Lee as the beloved "M." We all missed Bernard.

---

A mixed bag & poor sound
In all honesty, Octopussy is a film that divides the James Bond fan base. On the plus side, it features one of Roger Moore's better performances, quality supporting players, superb action sequences, and real dramatic tension in many key moments. As negatives, the plot is Byzantine and there are cringe-worthy moments of silliness (including the title). While the movie at certain points is as silly as "Moonraker", it also achieves the grittiness of "For Your Eyes Only" in others. Another example of the film's inconsistency is the score. While John Barry's use of the title song (All Time High) in a symphonic suite is pleasing and sensual, the overall score lacks the punch and flair of his earlier work on the series.

Nonetheless, if you can relax and enjoy the performances, locations, and action, and forget trying to figure out the plot, Octopussy is actually quite an enjoyable ride.

DVD: The recent releases of the Bond films have had an excellent complement of features and Octopussy is no different. Unfortunately, the producers did not go the extra mile on the sound quality. The 2.0 sound mix is a major disappointment, as the film presents many moments that could have sounded superb in 5.1.