Review 144: Octopussy

What a weird, weird film Octopussy is!

"007" receives the usual call to come and visit "Mother" when another agent drops off a fake Faberge jeweled egg at the British embassy in East Berlin and is later killed at a traveling circus. Suspicions mount when an Afghan Prince Kamal Kahn (Louis Jourdan), outbids Bond for the real Faberge piece at Sotheby's. Bond follows Kamal to India where the superspy thwarts many an ingenious attack and encounters the antiheroine of the title (Maud Adams), an international smuggler who runs the circus as a cover for her illegal operations. It does not take long to figure out that Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a decidedly rank Russian general is planning to raise enough money with the fake Faberges to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO forces once and for all in conventional warfare.

The plot is one of the main reasons why I think Octopussy is weird. It feels like the producers were trying to throw in as much stuff in it as possible and they fail to strike a balance. This movie features jewel smuggling, counterfeiting, a circus traveling through East Germany and an overacting Soviet general hell bent on setting off an atomic bomb. These elements and tones class so profoundly

 

 
There's the storyline of Orlov trying to invade Europe and the there's this really bizzare subplot were we find out Orlov has been supplying Khan with priceless Soviet treasures, replacing them with replicas, while Khan has been smuggling the real versions into the West, via Octopussy's circus troupe. As a result Octopussy feels a bit blured, is it a campy, silly James Bond film on similar lines to Roger More's earlier films, is it a fantasy adventure film on similar lines to The Spy Who Loved Me, is it a cloud war thriller? You can't really tell. It's a bunch of ideas that really just don't mesh well together. 

It has this really lighthearted vibe about it and features all these fantastical things such as tough henchmen, circuses, jewels, exotic locations, chases in tuk-tuk taxis, Bond driving cars on rails (all of which are well crafted) and Bond dressing as a clown but then it also has this Cold War plot that it wants you to take seriously and you just can't because there's all these anachronistic elements that just fit well with the story it's telling.

It tries to tell a cold war thriller the Roger Moore way and it just doesn't work.

Director John Glen (his second film in the series) direction is dramatically and lonely uneven, while he gets the action scenes spot on he fails to stick a balance between serious Cold War conflict and lighthearted adventure. There are loads of unfunny moments like Bond disguesing himself as a clown, a gorilla and a Cuban military officer and there's a part were during a Jungle chase Bond does a Tarzan yell, the gadgets range from decent to downright cartoonish, there's a yo-yo saw - possibly the only cool gadget is the Acrostar Jet in the openning teaser. And you've just got to think: why would General Orlov use fake Faberges to raise money to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO forces once and for all in conventional warfare? And why wolud he use a circus as a cover up? It just doesn't sound realistic enough for a Cold War Thriller.

This is a well made film however, the production design is tremendous (namely Kahn and Octopussy's palaces), the costume design is stylish and captures the flair and beauty of India, the effects are teriffic, the cinematography is gorgeous and captures the beauty and , the title song by Rita Coolidge is top notch, the locations are beautiful, the girls in Octopussy's cult are admitedly hot, the stunts (particularly during the train on aircraft and the train sequences) are fantastic, the score by John Barry is brilliant as always, the action scenes while feeling like they belong in a different film 

The acting was actually quite good, Roger Moore is...  is... well by the complete lack of adjectives you can probably tell he didn't exactly leave a big impression on me in this film. He mostly just sleepwalks through this film and is kind of just the same old, same old. 

However Maud Adams (her second apperance in a Bond film after The Man with the Golden Gun) is excellent as Octopussy and makes for one of the best Bond girls, professional, independent, intelligent 

A wealthy business woman who made her wealth in jewel smuggling, Octopussy is a very interesting Bond girl in that she occupies a morally grey area for  Along with a backstory that harkens back to the works of Fleming.

Kristina Wayborn is magnetic as Magda, Octopussy and Khan's trusted subordinate, she has a mysterious alure which is just irresistable

Vijay Amritraj is very likeable as Vijay, Bond's ally in India.

 

Kabir Bedi is scary as Gobinda, Khan's bodyguard

 

Steven Berkoff and Louis Jourdan make for a pair of generally hit-and-miss villains playing Gen. Orlov and Kamal Kahn respectively; Whilist Jourdan is suave and   Berkoff is just plain ott  a greedy, repacious, insane Soviet General who plans to dominate Europe becuase he feels that the time is ripe for a Soviet invasion of the West.

 

The film also introduces Robert Brown as the new M, who didn't make too much of an impression on me. Brown isn't bad per say he just isn't as warm or as interesting as Bernard Lee

I suppose if you're a Roger Moore fan you may enjoy this film, if you're not then it's a hit-or-miss affair, 2/5

The Anonymous Critic