After a fellow agent (009) is found murdered while carrying a fake Faberge egg, James Bond is called in to get to the bottom of the mystery. The clues lead him to India and after cracking a few jokes about sword swallowing, snake charming and sleeping on a bed of nails, Bond finds out that a renegade Soviet general is in cahoots with an Afghan prince who himself is conspiring with a jewel smuggler named Octopussy who also owns a circus. At the same time, the Russian general is looking to blow up a nuclear bomb in West Germany and there's this guy with a saw blade yo-yo, another guy who can crush dice with his bare hands, Bond hides in a gorilla suit and floats around in a fake alligator...what the hell is going on?!!!
After the relatively straight-forward story of FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, things go off the rails in this one. I was capable of following the story, but it was way too confusing for its own good. And the cheesy stuff like the Tarzan yell and the car driving on the railroad tracks just made me roll my eyes in disbelief. And speaking of disbelief...at one point Bond (in a gorilla suit) was in a railroad car hiding from two assassins, he makes a sound, the one guy hears him, grabs a sword then walks over (like 10 feet) and chops off the gorillas head at which point we see Bond jumping through a hatch in the ceiling. How the fuck did Bond take off the gorilla suit, get it to stand up on it's own(!!!), run across the car and jump through the hatch all unseen in the same time it took the other guy to simply walk across the room?! Total bullshit. I understand that Bond is suppose to be bigger than life and unkillable, but goddamn, that scene was just too silly for me.
Goofy scene after goofy scene, boring bad guys, average looking "Bond babes", Bond swinging from vines while giving the Tarzan yell, average pace, confusing story, lame gadgets, knife-throwing twins, clowns, nice stunts (that airplane one at the end was very impressive), that one guy from RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, explosions, the word "octopussy" said many times. For example: Bond sees a girl with a small octopus tattoo and she tells him "That's my little octopussy." Ohhh, brother!
Worth a watch for Bond fans, but I can't see myself wanting to watch it again anytime soon.
Two and a half thunderballs out of five.
Part 1 - Dr. No (1962)
Part 2 - From Russia With Love (1963)
Part 3 - Goldfinger (1964)
Part 4 - Thunderball (1965)
Part 5 - You Only Live Twice (1967)
Part 6 - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Part 7 - Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Part 8 - Live and Let Die (1973)
Part 9 - The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
Part 10 - The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Part 11 - Moonraker (1979)
Part 12 - For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Part 14 - A View to a Kill (1985)
Part 15 - The Living Daylights (1987)
Part 16 - Licence to Kill (1989)
Part 17 - GoldenEye (1995)
Part 18 - Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Part 19 - The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Part 20 - Die Another Day (2002)
Part 21 - Casino Royale (2006)
Part 22 - Quantum of Solace (2008)
Part 23 - Skyfall (2012)
Part 24 - Spectre (2015)
Part 25 - No Time to Die (2021)
Non-Eon James Bond films:
Casino Royale (1967)
Never Say Never (1983)
