007 December – Live and Let Die (1973) – MovieRob

For today’s final review of Live and Let Die (1973), here are my thoughts on it.

Thanks again to Luke and Niall for their reviews earlier today

 

“I know who you are, what you are, and why you’ve come. You have made a mistake. You will not succeed. ” – Solitaire

Number of Times Seen – 2-3 times (cable in the 80’s and 90’s and 9 Dec 2014)

Brief Synopsis – After 3 other agents are murdered, Bond is sent to a small Caribbean island to try and find out why.

My Take on it – For Roger Moore’s first outing as Bond, he gets to basically do all his work in The Americas.

Growing up on the Bond movies of the late 70’s – early 80’s, Moore has always been my favorite Bond because to me seems like the natural choice in the role.

His cheeky one-liners and the way he woos his ladies is what I have grown to expect from the series, so for me he can do no wrong in the way he plays the character.

Yaphet Kotto is great as the villain here, but I didn’t find his henchmen as daunting as him.

The problem I had with this movie was that it really felt like it was imitating the genre of blacksploitation movies of the 70’s and eventhough parts of it worked, other parts just felt like it was a bot too much.

Regardless, this movie delivers what we want from a James Bond movie and that in and of itself makes it enjoyable.

The boat chase scene is amazing!

Bottom Line – Fun Bond outing where Moore was able to show that he can handle the part just as well as Connery did.  Kotto is a great and menacing villain, but the whole thing still reeks of a blacksploitation film of the 70’s. Recommended!

Rating – Globe Worthy

 

Here’s the main title song:

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