The Spy Who Loved Me James Bond DVD & Lotus Esprit S1 Car 007 Set Hot Wheels Die-Cast edition movie Roger Moore

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) 9 out of 10: How does one even score James Bond films? Do you score them against each other or consider them against movies as a whole? Do you take into consideration the various filming and special effects restrictions on the earlier works? Do you take into account the aversion to sex and nudity in some of the later works? Is Peter Sellers considered a real Bond character? Is George Lazenby? Is Timothy Dalton?What is the worst Bond film? It’s Thunderball which I might add was remade in into a Never Say Never which honestly is also vying for a spot in the bottom five. That script is poison. The best Bond film, however, is a much tougher nut to crack.The Spy Who Loved Me is undoubtedly in the top five. Or at least my top five. Which admittedly holds less weight after I declared Thunderball worse than Octopussy, the one with Denise Richards, and the one with the invisible car.The Good: The Spy Who Loved Me is chock full of iconic bits. After a fairly long and somewhat relaxed, by Bond standards, opening sequence Bond skis of a cliff in a stunt so spectacular it is still remembered forty years later.Also remembered forty years later is the white Lotus Esprit that turns into a submarine (The Spy Who Loved Me also had the first Jetski. Literally. Bond is riding the prototype.)There is a surprisingly good battle on a vast soundstage near the conclusion of the film. The whole movie has a fantastic sense of scale to it.Speaking of large, 7’ 2” Richard Keil as Jaws steals the show. Utterly indestructible and a with a never quit attitude he is easily the most likable Bond henchman.If you are making a list of Bond Girls Barabara Bach is going to be near the top. Even better her character is one of the better-written Bond girls. Also, Barabara doesn’t like to wear clothing all that much even by Bond girl standards.Nobody does it better is one of the best theme songs and for my money the discofied Bond theme by Marvin Hamlisch (Bond ‘77) really rocks. Both are regulars on my Spotify list.Plus there is more. Our proto Bioshock villain feeding of the secretary to the shark (Okay its no Zombi 2 but still impressive), Great scenery particularly in Eygpt. Excellent overall direction and a decent plot with some actual conflict and nuance.The Bad: There are some “dude really” moments in this film that make it show its age. The miniature effects overall are excellent (and there are a lot of them), but then there will be a scene where a submarine is leaving a burning tanker and someone put a gummy bear on a dock and hoped it looked like a dead body.The bad guy plans to nuke the earth and to live under the sea (hold on I have a song stuck in my head.)Under the seaUnder the seaDarling it's betterDown where it's wetterTake it from meDammit, that's going to be stuck in there all day. You know that is kind of a suggestive tune for a children's cartoon now I think about it.) Anyway he has this plan just like Hugo Drax in the follow-up Moonraker. Except Drax had all these Logan’s Run style supermodel couples and Stromberg is down two female henchwomen out of well two (One he fed to a shark the other Bond killed with a missile from his underwater car. Seriously the movie has scenes like these to spare.) Point is Rapture needs women.Remember when films used to use slide whistles or other sound effects during particularly dumb or slapsticky comedic moments? Yeah, this film does that too.Last of the bad has Roger Moore ever not been too old to play James Bond. Forget doing stunts and beating up henchman I would worry if Roger has the balance and strength to clean the rain gutters.The Ugly: I have a high tolerance for poor special effects from the old days. Yes, I complained about one miniature shot above, but that was due to sloppiness (It looked like a third graders diorama) rather than miniatures in general. And overall The Spy Who Loved Me has excellent miniature work. I have a high tolerance for less than perfect CGI, miniatures, guys in Godzilla outfits, squibs, car crashes, puppets, matte paintings, prosthetic makeup, stop motion, and obvious stuntmen. What I cannot stand are bad green screen effects. The Spy Who Loved Me has some doozies particularly in that opening sequence you are showing your friends to tell them how cool this film is. I hate bad green screen.Now The Spy Who Loved Me is hardly alone in great films with terrible green screen effects. , and there are plenty of times you just got to ask why are they filming in a “moving” car if they know it is going to look that bad. There is even a film that is not just plagued with bad green screen, but they also speed up the green-screened film to give an additional sense of speed. That film’s name… Thunderball.In Conclusion: More memorable scenes than most Bond films with a great Bond Girl, soundtrack and henchman. One of my favorite Bond films.

The special effects in this are abysmal. I can't see how anyone heaps praises on this thing. The leads do an okay job of acting, but the supporting cast and the shot setup do not perform well. The super tanker looks like the model that it is, and the undersea complex looks like a toy filmed in slow motion rising out of soapy water.The extras are not professional actors but people they grabbed off the street as a cost cutting measure. That verse the extras in the Connery era of bond films who were actually professional actors or performers of some sort.What gets me is the lack of taste from people giving this five stars. Whatever. I'm guessing they're the same people who think a Big Mac or Whopper with cheese is a gourmet meal. I really don't get the praises heaped on this. In previous Connery era films you had professional crew, passing SFX for the time, and a sense of what the film needed to be. But for this movie, if it isn't the effects, then its the extras. If it isn't either of those two things, then it's the shooting style or miscued music.I'll say this, really good popular movies tend to get a lot of review. This one, for all its "popularity", along with the other B-grade Bond material form the Roger Moore era, has only 500 some odd reviews.Avoid this thing.

Many excellent reviews have been posted about "The Spy Who Loved Me" but I liked it just simply because I feel it properly commemorates the late Roger Moore nicely. Mr. Moore really struts his suave side driving a Lotus Esprit, wearing a tux, and drinking Dom Perignon 1952 Champagne all while seeming human and gentlemanly. It also showcases an intelligent female agent played by Barbara Bach as not only a disposable bond girl but a partner in the mission. (Interestingly she had an off -screen relationship with Ringo Starr of the Beatles) This movie was a considerable success with audiences, and visually interesting as well. It was filmed on locations in Egypt, Sardinia, a studio in London, Malta, underwater in the Bahamas, as well as in Scotland, Switzerland, Canada, and Okinawa, Japan.

I really consider this one of only two good Bond films to feature Roger Moore, but I mean good really more in the sense that it's competently made and never bores you, which puts it ahead of its immediate predecessors by a wide margin. Here, we see Roger Moore actually capturing some of the wit and charm you expect from James Bond, a plot that's coherent and properly paced and actually feels like a James Bond movie, something the series hadn't for a while at this point. Some downsides are present, though. The main villain isn't particularly interesting (but that's okay, because you spend way more time with the villains vastly more fun henchmen, Jaws), the subplot about conflict between Bond and Triple-X over him killing her lover doesn't go anywhere, and the music is very dated (to put it generously). It's also more aimed at younger people than the others. Not to say that James Bond was ever really meant for serious adults, but a lot of elements of the story and characterization are very simplified compared to previous installments. This is, in short, James Bond for children. That's not to say it's bad, it's just different from the way the series had been during the previous eras of the franchise. If you're a Bond fan, it's still a must get and if you're looking to introduce your kids to the franchise, this is a good entry point into it. If you're an adult who isn't already a Bond fan, though, it probably won't change your opinion about the series any.As for the product itself, the blu-ray's a decent transfer, it's got a director's commentary that I enjoyed, some interesting documentary features. If I had any complaint, it's that the case is flimsy and could easily be damaged if you don't take care of it.

James Bond and a beautiful Soviet officer Major Amasova combine to investigate what happened to two of their countries submarines that disappeared.One of the all time great adventures of the series with many legendry moments. The first thing to say is just how great the film looks, cinematographer Claude Renoir does a magnificent job creating an atmosphere and some of his locations are superb and set designer Ken Adam also does an excellent job creating the enormous blockbuster Bond sets. Roger Moore is excellent and by now has made the role his own, Barbara Bach as Major Amasova is also wonderful, she is one of the most well rounded "Bond girls", she's not only tough and self-sufficient but his equal in many ways and Curd Jurgens is a great bond villain. Lewis Gilbert return as director and does a great job maintaining the excellent pace and keeping the balance of action and drama just right, Marvin Hamlisch's score is very entertaining and very in keeping for time plus Carly Simon's theme song is certainly one of the best. There are other outstanding things about this film that make it stand out, Jaws played by Richard Keil is almost certainly the most memorable villain in Bond history, not just because of his enormous size (7ft 2in) but because the character was superbly played and written. Then there are the stunts and set pieces of which there are many, firstly the Lotus Esprit the car that turns into the underwater vessel,one of the most memorable scenes not just in Bond but movie history and then opening ski sequence and cliff jump both are just as amazing as you remember.Re-watching this movie again I was struck by just how well done it was in all departments, I couldn't find a single thing I didn't like about it. A real classic that is well acted, brilliantly shot and written and lavishly produced spy thriller, one of my top 3 Bond movies. 5/5

Logline: When British and Soviet submarines are stolen, Bond and his female Soviet counterpart must work together to prevent a megalomaniac and his indestructible henchman using the submarines’ nuclear missiles to provoke world war three.Although The Spy Who Loved Me is an enjoyable movie, it was made in the nineteen seventies, has dated somewhat and has faults, some a more forgiveable than others – the movie can’t really be blamed where film-making technology has improved.The locations and sets are great: the gigantic supertanker set, Stromberg’s underwater base, the Egyptian pyramids and temples. But movies have better cinematography now, and a lot of the sets, the train, the submarine, various hotels and clubs, seem overlit and stagey.The fight scenes are tame by modern standards, but that has its good and bad side: real fights aren’t the ‘ballet with fists’ we see today, and real punches don’t make a noise like an iron bar hitting concrete. And Bond actually looks scared when Jaws is beating the crap out of him, which is good.The action set pieces and stunt work in The Spy Who Loved Me are some of the best in any Bond film. Iconic moments like Bond skiing off a cliff and then his parachute opening, the Lotus Esprit turning into a submarine, and the bows of the supertanker opening to swallow the submarine, are great and work perfectly. On the other hand, special effects to include the actors in the action scenes have come a long way. Some of the back-projection used to include close-ups of Roger Moore in the action scenes looks poor now.Less acceptable is the script which is clunky, both in dialogue and plot mechanics, with a lot of brief logistical and plot exposition scenes. It also has Bond spout endless one liners, hardly any of which are actually funny. Scenes like Bond in Arab dress on a camel for no good reason are just an embarrassment. Also, by modern standards, the movie is quite slow – the opening half an hour in Egypt would be cut to about ten minutes these days – compare the pyramids scene in The Spy Who Loved Me to the similar scene at the opera in Quantum of Solace for example.The acting is mediocre all round. Roger Moore is okay when he’s not leering or smirking, which is not often. His occasional serious scenes such as when he explains to Anya why he killed her lover are good, but there’s not many of them. Barbara Bach is beautiful, but wooden, and considering she’s supposed to be the KGB’s top agent she doesn’t get much to do.Having said all that, The Spy Who Loved Me does still work, and I can forgive it a lot for the sight of Bond’s union jack parachute and the Lotus Esprit turning into a submarine.See my full review, including full plot synopsis, on my website.

the film is great - you should know that by now - but there is some sort of trick happening at amazon. i ordered the 2-disc set but the 1-disc version arrived. when i checked the original order, it definitely said "2 disc" on the main grouping but when i looked closely at the actual order number, it said "1-disc". mistake - or rip-off? caveat emptor!

Given " The Spy Who Loved Me" was released in 1977, I think most people would have seen it by now and you get what you'd expect from a James Bond film from the Roger Moore era - plenty of corn !!Also good to see plenty of Royal Navy involvement in the film, from the era when my Brother was in the Service.

Great movie and excellent quality I love the way they have digitally re-mastered on to a DVD. I love all James bond movies and the print quality is just great, bearing in mind it was originally a non digital print. The sound is great too at 5.1 dolby surround. Overall it's a great product to own instead of those old video cassette players.

Purchased for the extras which are always good...Watching it I was immediately transported back to my local flea pit back in the day...Good storyline; if somewhat derivative by current standards...but so much better than the onerous Fleming original.

Wanted my children to experience the James Bond family film nights that I remember! We got the fire going over Christmas and all settled down to watch this, sherry in hand for the grown ups, Quality Streets in easy reach. It was good fun but sooooo dated and of course, ultra sexist. However, my ten yr old son loved it and watched it to the end. My 12 yr old daughter was less impressed. The adults dozed off, so all in all it did conjure up family film nights of the past!

Got to be the best Bond film ever,has the best Bond car,the Lotus,some of the prettiest bond girls and it has the henchmen Jaws.Takes me back to the summer of 77.

I had a bad disc could not play so i purchased this as a replacement good purchase to complete my set, James Bond say no more.

It present its own times Bond film. Roger Moore is his elegant self and Barbara Bach has eyes to drown for. The world is still a neat paggage with full hope of detante. Most of it went a bit worse but this is not Bonds fault. Here i dont cry for digital effects. Its still more adventure film than pure action. In fact here I enjoy more the peacefull parts.

The third and possibly the best of the Roger Moore, Bond's.

The Spy Who Loved Me was an amazing Bond movie. The highlight was definitely Jaws and Naomi. Jaws just had no emotion and kicked ass while Naomi had the sassy attitude and the damn plane that fired missles non stop but the action was intense and it created some of the most memorable Bond characters.

Could not get it to play on either of 2 DVD players and too much hassle to return

great classic bond flim.

Very good quality playback, with special items to play also. I recommend this DVD for James Bond Enthusiasts.