You can find the James Bond Watch Party Page Here. If some Bond watch party blogs are good, more is better! I may get caught up to where we are at in the rewatch this week, we’ll see how things go. I’m back with the long form play by play for 2 out of the next three Bond’s before we switch to Timothy Dalton. The sixth Bond movie with Moore at the helm and 13th overall came out in 1983, I was a whopping 1 when this came out.
Cast of Characters:
Bond, James Bond: Roger Moore (x6)
Big Bad: Kamal Kahn played by Louis Jourdan, his main henchman is Gobinda (Turbin dude) played by Kabir Bedi
Femme Fatale/Bond Girl(s): Octopussy played by Maud Adams, this is her 2nd stint in the Bond verse she was also in The Man with the Golden Gun.
Ladies who had the pleasure of being James Boned: 2 (Magda and of course Octopussy)
Moneypenny: Lois Maxwell (x13)
M: A new M this time played by Robert Brown
Q: Desmond Llewelyn (x11)
Foreign Agent/Spy: Vijay played by Vijay Amritraj
Theme Song: All Time High, composed by Tim Rice and performed by Rita Coolidge
Director: John Glen (x2)
The Movie –
We start at some sort of a horse competition in what looks like Cuba maybe? Lots of military dudes around. Bond shows up in disguise and looks quote dapper in his beret. He dons a military outfit and a super hilarious moustache and brazenly makes his way onto the barracks. He makes his way back to some secret satellite thing and judo chops some dude before planting a bomb on it and being caught by dozens of soldiers, by the guy he was supposed to be impersonating.
The lady who helped him get in his disguise follows him after he is taken captive in a Land Rover that has a trailer. She flirts with the guards who are keeping guns trained on him and BLAM he activates their parachutes and Bond jumps to her Land Rover, easily escaping. Bond gets in the trailer as a ton of dudes start coming after him and OH! He has a tiny little jet LOL, this intro is pretty damn sweet. He plays chicken with all the approaching military guys coming after him and Bond wins of course, he always wins.
They fire an anti-aircraft missile at him and it chases him for a while almost getting him several times, but this is James Motherfucking Bond, so of course he flies his jet through their secret base causing the missile to chase after him and blows everyone the fuck up. Bond is low on fuel so he makes an awesome landing and pulls up next to a gas pump and asks for a fill up. Great intro scene to this one.
The title song and intro stuff plays and it’s pretty meh, crappy laser graphics and the song isn’t that great. We’re now in East Berlin, which WEIRD that the Berlin Wall was still up for this one. We see a clown jump over a fence and run off into the woods. The clown is being pursued by some dude with a giant knife. One of the clowns balloons pops giving away his position and the dude with the knife catches up to him, oh snap there’s 2 dudes with knives, they are twins. The clown keeps trying to get away and gets a knife throw in his back for his troubles, he gets swept down river and crawls out of the water. There’s still miraculously one balloon on the clown, the clown busts through some fancy house window and drops a fancy egg as he dies in front of an ambassador.
James and Moneypenny having some flirting, she has a new assistant, and she’s pretty good looking, Moneypenny is looking pretty old now. We now have a new M, I’m sad about the first M. M has egg that the clown died giving to the ambassador. It’s a fake apparently, the real one is being put up for auction later that day. The clown was also a 00, 009 to be exact and he’s now dead. Now were in some sort of Russian Government meeting? They are talking about NATO and arguing about policy. There is a fancy turning section in the room they are in and an angry Russian dude starts talking about Russian troops and tanks in East Germany and Europe. They are arguing about attacking and what NATO would do, some think Nucs, the angry guy giving the presentation doesn’t think so.
We’re now at the Kremlin Art Repository, one of the knife guys who killed 009 is there too, they are talking about the fake egg that the Brits now have. The Russians think its lost in the river. Bond is now at the auction for the real egg with M. A hot lady walks in the room and Bond notices, I feel like she will be James Boned here soon. Were up to 320k pounds for the egg now. There’s our bad guy Kamal Kahn, he and James get into a bidding war. The egg is taken over to Bond who I’m pretty sure switched it with the fake, Kahn wins the bidding war for 500k pounds. The hot lady of course is with the bad guy, I bet she has some sort of vendetta against him.
Bond totally switched the real one with the fake egg! M makes bond sign a chit for the egg before he leaves. We’re now in India at the Taj Mahal, lots of travelling around so far in this movie, I like all the exotic locations. Bond is getting off a boat and there’s a snake charmer who plays the Bond theme, Bond recognizes it as his guy and we meet Vijay a local agent and Bond gets taken to his hotel. The Monsoon palace is where Kamal is and Bond has an inkling to do some gambling. The very pretty lady showing Bond to his room definitely wants to get James boned. Bond goes on his balcony and now we see the hot lady again, she came off a boat with a flag that has a stylized octopus on it.
Bond shows up at the casino looking very dapper in a white suit, they are playing Backgammon, Bond notices Kamal is cheating, he’s playing against some British major and kicking his ass. Bond takes over for the Major. James automatically loses and then raises the stakes, he busts out the egg and then takes Kahns cheater dice and wins with double sixes. Kahn’s henchman takes the cheater dice and crushes them with his bare hands while glaring angrily at Bond, so scary, he is definitely going to fight Bond soon. Bond and Vijay head out with the egg and now we have our first car chase through the streets of India, Vijay is fending them off with a tennis racket. Bond gets stabbed, but the wad of cash he just won keep him safe. Vijay keeps making Tennis puns, because he is awesome. Now there’s more dudes after them and one of them has a damn Blunderbuss lol, they take a shot at Bond but miss. Bond takes off into the crowd trying to avoid his pursuers, he walks across fire and then kills a dude on a bunch of nails that a guy was laying on. There’s dudes juggling fire and swalling swords and of course Bond uses all these to his advantage to get away and kill bad guys. Vijay shows back up and they take off with the blunderbuss angry dice crushing dude in pursuit. Bond throws more of the money he won up in the air and the crowd goes crazy. Vijay drives through this poster that automatically replaces itself and they get away. Great first chase scene.
We are now in Q’s lair with so many gadgets. Bond gets in an excellent burn on Q about being able to keep it up after the rope device he is demonstrating fails. Bond gets a run down on all the cool gadgets and they put a tracker in the real egg that Kahn wants. I’m a little disappointed there’s been no James boning so far but I feel like one is coming soon. Bond is back at the hotel and is stopped by someone saying his table is ready, it’s the hot lady from the auction. And now they are boning down, I knew there was one coming soon. James notices she has an octopus tattoo and asks about it, she says it’s her little Octopussy and LOL it was very hilarious to hear her say that. Kahn drops the henchman off at the hotel and we see Magda, who just got James Boned stealing the egg. Or trying to steal it at least, because James sees her and lets her get away with it so they can track her. She cascades down the balcony somehow with her scarf and then the henchman knocks Bond the hell out.
Kahn has the egg and is on a boat filled with scantily dressed women, I assume it’s the next day, he’s being escorted through some giant palace filled with women. Kahn reports to some lady that he has the real egg, and says James Bond is the one who had it, the lady pauses and demand that Bond be brought to her. Bonds at the Monsoon palace with a giant lump on his head from the henchman. Bond checks his surroundings and finds he’s being held captive. He’s forced to have dinner with the lady he just boned and Kahn. Kahn details how they will torture him for information. EW STUFFED SHEEPS HEAD, reminds me of chilled monkey brains from Temple of Doom. Bond is escorted back to his prison cell/room by the angry dice crushing henchman.
Bond is now using acid to remove the bars from his window and of course he escapes. Bond uses the bug in the egg to listen in on Kahn’s plan with the Russian dude. The Russian dude smashes, what I think is the real egg, and Kahn finds the bug, Bond hears them coming and hides in a horrible room filled with dead bodies, that was a super crazy room, the bodies were hung up on like meat hooks. They find out Bond escaped but they can’t find him and Kahn says they will just track him instead. Kahn and the henchman take off in elephants and Bond sneaks out of the palace in a body bag and escapes on foot. Kahn is apparently hunting Tigers? Bond runs through the jungle and runs into a giant gnarly spiderweb as groups of people chase after him taking shots trying to kill him. Bond sneaks under an elephant and undoes the buckle causing the henchman to fall off LOL and the hunt continues. Double LOL now bond literally Tarzans across a bunch of vines and makes the ridiculous noise, he now has leaches on him and there’s a gator or croc after him. He runs into the river to a boat that’s nearby as the elephant hunting caravan stops pursuit. Mr Bond is a very rare breed, soon to be mad extinct Kahn quips and Bond gets away.
Bond finds out about Octopussy’s island and sneaks up to it in an alligator underwater disguise, genius Mr. Bond. Bond makes his way to Octopussy’s lair and confronts her with a gun, she makes him a drink and they discuss jewelry smuggling. Octopussy’s father was a smuggler that Bond took out a long time ago. Kahn shows up and tells Octopussy that Bond has escaped, then she dismisses Kahn after revealing Bond is already there. Bond is shown to his room where he’s being kept under guard still.
Kahn and his henchman go to a shady spot and pay a bunch of dudes to take out Bond, one of them has a crazy saw blade weapon, which I assume he’ll fight Bond with. We now see Q on the shore across from Octopussy’s island fishing and keeping an eye on Bond. Bond and Octopussy are now boning down after he forces himself on her Connery style. I gotta say Moore looks a little older in this film, he’s still got it but definitely getting up there. Vijay is now fishing and watching the island and he gets attacked by the saw blade dude and Kahn’s henchman, NOOOO they killed Vijay. I liked him.
We now have all the crazy dudes attacking Octopussy’s island and trying to take out Bond, there is some pretty decent fights and one dude gets an octopus on his face and totally dies. Bond and the blade wielding dude smash through some lattice and fall into the water and keep fighting, a crocodile shows up and then we see Bond showing back up to where Q and Vijay were, in the fake crocodile. Q confirms Vijay told him that it was Kahn’s men before he died.
Bond is now in a car with M discussing what is going down with all the jewel smuggling and he is sent on a mission to some crazy circus, a la double 009. The crazy knife guys from the first scene are here and now Octopussy and Kahn are here plotting with the Russian dude. I’m still not sure on what the overall plot is with the Russians. Bond hides on the bottom of a train, which seems scary as hell. We see the group of bad guys going over some sort of a device on one of the trains and Bond is skulking around doing spy stuff. Bond and the knife guy are now fighting and Bond is barely not getting knifed, he barely domes the knife guy and is still on the train. Bond takes knife guys clothes and then confronts the Russian dude. The device is a nuclear device and the Russian is plotting on blowing it up on an Air Force base (in Europe I think). It will be setup as an accident. OH SHIT Bond just shot some Russian soldier right between the eyes, he’s getting headshot after headshot like a boss! We’ve got another car chase, Bond blows out the tires on the car and then hops right on the train tracks to follow the nuc, he’s catching up to the train and jams the gas pedal so he can jump on it, he barely makes it before another train takes out the car head on.
There’s now a helicopter and the Russian dude chasing after the train car that Bond got on, the Russian dude gets gunned down by other Russians and has a really weird death. Bond is in a gorilla costume on the train watching the guys set the bomb to detonate, Kahn his henchman and the other knife dude are all there. The henchman figures out Bond is there and Bond somehow escapes to the top of the train where runs to a car further up the train and then he sneaks to the side of the train almost falling off. The henchman finally finds Bond and they battle it out, here we go! Bond now fights the other knife dude and they jump off the train and Bond gets revenge for 009 on the other knife dude.
There’s now a parade and on one of the floats is the nuclear bomb, Bond checks his watch and has a little over an hour to defuse it. Bond is making his way to the circus to try and stop this bomb from going boom. T minues 35 minutes until detonation now, Bond makes his way onto the base, desperately trying to get to the bomb to defuse it. Bond changes into a full clown suit and makes his way into the circus and out onto the main stage, where he promptly confronts the general and tells him about the bomb. Bond pleads with Octopussy that Kahn had double crossed her, he’s trying to get to the bomb, they all see it with 15 seconds left and he defuses it with 1 second remaining, that was freaking intense.
Octopussy and her gang of girls are now attacking some palace where Kahn and the henchmanare trying to get away. Octopussy gets into Kahn’s room and has a gun on his ass. Now there’s an all out brawl between Octopussy’s people and Kahn’s. Bond shows up in a hot air balloon emblazoned with the Union Jack, awesome. Bond is taking out dudes left and right and even uses a tiger skin rug to fake one guy out, classic. He’s now riding down the bannister blasting fools with a sub machine gun as he chases after Octopussy. Q takes out a bad guy with the hot air balloon and all the hot women are of course fawning over him, he says he has no time for that but later perhaps. Go Q go, get some. Octopussy is knocked out and taken away on a plane as Bond uses a horse to catch up with the plane just as its taking off. Kahn and the henchman know he’s on the plane and try to do some fancy shenanigans to get him off, it doesn’t work. Oh now the henchman, with a knife in his hand goes after Bond and he is finally killed as Bond knocks his ass off the plane. Bond somehow gets Octopussy off the plane right before it crashes and they survive. Bond is hurt and M says he is indisposed and what he really means is James is getting his bone on with Octopussy on her weird boat thing. And that’s it the theme song plays again, and I don’t really like it that much.
I didn’t think this one was one of the more horrible Roger Moore entries, it was not as good as Moonraker or Man with the Golden Gun but not as bad as Live and Let Die or For Your Eyes Only. As with most Bond movies it was too long and drug on in quite a few places. I give this one 6 out of 10 PPKs.
My First to worst my rankings after Octopussy:
Goldfinger
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Moonraker
The Man with the Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Dr. No
Thunderball
Octopussy
You Only Live Twice
Diamonds are Forever
For Your Eyes Only
Live and Let Die
From Russia with Love
Ellie’s Thoughts: How many tickles does it take to make an Octopus laugh? Ten tickles…. Or in this case, eight. I have mixed feelings about Octopussy, both as a title/person and as a film itself. Like most Roger Moore Bond films (and really most Bond films in general), it went on too long and dragged at times. I liked the parts in India, Bond in clownface, and appreciated that Octopussy (who nicknames their child this? And why?) actually had some depth as a character. I don’t think I’d go out of my way to watch this one again, however.
I give Octopussy 5 out of 10 martinis shaken, not stirred.
Up next, the only not officially canon Bond in our re-watch, Connery’s last go in Never Say Never Again…
Cuppa 