Spy Who Loved Me, The (1977)

Agent Triple X?! She's like throwing a submarine down a tanker!

Bond: Roger Moore (Live And Let Die • The Man With The Golden Gun)

Bond Girl: Major Anya Amasova, Agent Triple X  Played By: Barbara Bach (Force 10 from Navarone • Black Belly of the Tarantula)
Bond Villain: Karl Stromberg  Played By: Curd Jürgens (Battle of Britain • The Assassination Bureau)
Villain's Goon: Jaws  Played By: Richard Kiel (Moonraker • Pale Rider)

Genre: Action Adventure Thriller (UK) 

Directed By: Lewis Gilbert (You Only Live Twice • Moonraker)

Overview: Bond is reassigned from his mission in Austria to investigate the case of missing British and Russian nuclear submarines. He teams up with a Russian KGB agent, who just so happens to have lost her lover in a recent mission in Austria…
Oh and sinister plots be foiled - or be they!?

Imagine yourself being chased by a 7'2" giant. You escape, locking a gate behind you with a massive chain. This 7'2" giant picks up the chain, smiles a metal grin and bites into it, taking the chain apart in a blink of an eye. When he then catches up to you he doesn't kill you with a gun or bash your head in... he eats your neck off.

That, my dear readers, is the phenomenon that is Jaws, most renowned of the James Bond Goons and debatably the best - that is if you can wrap your head around his ridiculous premise. If you've seen Oddjob in Goldfinger, well you already know that Fleming's whipped up worse than giant metal-mouthed vampiric assassins.

We begin with one of the best opening sequences in a Bond film yet, Bond is layin' pipe in an Austrian chalet, when his watch pumps out a message that he needs to return to HQ immediately.

Bond pulls out (teehee), dons his bumblebee / blimp / obvious target ski suit, and is immediately beset upon by alpine assaulters. Using skill, luck and gadgetry he escapes, roll credits of amazing boobies in a silhouette-nudes (except for the Russian fur hat) guns-drawn trampoline and acrobatics montage, then the mission at hand: a UK nuclear sub has disappeared from the Atlantic. He follows a trail that would lead him to the man who may have the tracking technology and bumps into a Russian KGB agent on a mission to find a sub of the Soviet persuasion. After stepping on each other toes, they're teamed up to work together and plot development ensues, including one rather cold bare-handed kill on James' part involving a treacherous roof and 007's flimsy little tie as a teetering man's only anchor to life. And of course the nemesis that is Jaws, the impervious, steel-mawed freak.

The strength of The Spy Who Loved Me lies in the adventure - from Cairo to underwater mobile bases and of the action sequences - including yet another Spy Hunter-inspiring car chase, the insanely awesome gadgetry that don't look good but work like a dream and the silent dynamic built between Bond and Jaws, a Goon too great to be contained in but one film. Top it off with the pleasure of replacing the slide-whistles and goofy antics of tertiary comic relief characters with my ever-favorite epic-class action sequences involving platoons of men in blue with guns and grenades versus men in orange with guns and grenades, and well, The Spy Who Loved Me becomes a true contender for 'Top Five' in the Bond box.

Bond Cars: The Lotus Esprit

Bond Gadgets: Before the credits, Bond has that awful watch, a crazy ski pole rocket harpoon weapon and a parachute. During the mission is the Lotus Esprit, a hideous thing, however it shoots a sticky ink-like goo that covers windshields and darkens waters. The car itself becomes a a submarine and even sports a sea to air guided missile. Oh My God.

And as secret bases go, an underwater city that walks is seriously the shit

Performance: 8 Cinematography: 8 Script: 8 Plot: 8 Mood: 9

Overall Rating: 82% (Easily Wooed)

SuperSpyStats

Personal bodycount: 13 - One of which is with his bare hands!

Foiled Assassinations: 7

Near Misses: Luckiest he's ever been at 2

Dames Bedded: the standard 3

Martinis Drank: 1

What's all this?