While I turned away from the Sean Connery Films, I found myself delighting in the campy schtick of the Roger Moore films. They do, of course, lather on more than a bit of misogyny. However, over time, they come off charming compared to the previous Bond.
Roger Moore Bond Films
- The Man with the Golden Gun
- View to a Kill
- The Spy Who Loved Me
- For Your Eyes Only
- Moonraker
- Live and Let Die
- Octopussy
Without a doubt, The Man with the Golden Gun is my favorite Roger Moore Bond film. Christopher Lee, as Scaramanga, plays one of the best Bond villains as an assassin who kills with a single shot from his eponymous Golden Gun.
He’s driven to prove himself the best assassin in the world by challenging James Bond to a duel. The Man with the Golden Gun is a rare Bond movie with a reasonably dramatic plot. It’s also a great example of how Bond movies regularly use emerging technology, in this case solar energy, as McGuffins in various films.
View to a Kill is a PERFECT Bond movie. It has everything that makes a great Bond movie: A totally insane villain played wonderfully by Christopher Walken, the filigreed setting of Château de Chantilly as the backdrop of a high stakes thoroughbred auction., a devious plot to destroy Silicon Valley, and one FABULOUS Grace Jones as the Amazonian assassin May Day. That doesn’t even cover it’s theme by Duran Duran, one of the best Bond songs of the franchise.
The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only are basically Roger Moore standards. Enjoyable if you like his Bond oeuvre, mostly tolerable.
Moonraker is an interesting entry in the Bond canon as it actually cut ahead of For Your Eyes Only because the producers wanted to capitalize on the success of a little movie called Star Wars.
Live and Let Die is actually a quite enjoyable, but suffers from some racist stereotypes, and the introduction of the Jar Jar Binks of the Bond films, Sheriff Pepper. He is an offensive take on a rural Louisiana sheriff, and the most forgettable character to appear in Bond films.
Finally, we have Octopussy. The name alone is enough to put it at the bottom of this, or any, Bond list. It also features one of the worst Bond girl names, the eponymous Octopussy. It makes most dialogue involving her character cringeworthy.