The Man with the Golden Gun, Roger Moore's second turn as James Bond, is even more of a mess than Live and Let Die; his first Bond movie. However, despite that, I actually found it to be mildly more entertaining because Moore seems to have settled himself into the role and is the center of nearly every scene.
Christopher Lee of all people, plays the Bond villain this time. His Scaramanga is the man with the golden gun, a super assassin who seems to have turned his gun sights on Bond. He also has a rather silly plan to use Solar Energy to make a lot of money, but that's so unimportant it's hardly worth mentioning. The only point to this movie is put Bond in different set pieces and chases in foreign locales.
There are some really horrendous moments in this movie, but less so than the last go round. The worst is in fact a repeat of the last movie's biggest problem. Southern Sheriff, J.W. Pepper makes a return appearance, coincidentally taking a vacation in Hong Kong when Bond is there. He shows up not once, but twice in the movie, taking part in a car chase scene that features the most famous stunt from the movie, that of Bond jumping a river and having his car rotate 360 degrees during the jump. As in the last movie, the character of Pepper is god awful and completely out of place.
As this was the 1970s and the Kung-Fu movies were popular, the movie has to feature some karate. Over the years, the Bond villains have come up with some pretty lame ways of trying to kill him, but this movie has to have the lamest. When one of the minor villains decides to kill him, he doesn't just shoot him, he sends him to a karate school where I guess he thinks they'll chop him to death. Instead of course, Bond is able to fight his way out with the help of a sidekick and a couple of school-girls.
The Bond girls are pretty unnotable. Maude Adams makes her first appearance as a Bond girl (she would return in Octopussy as a different character) and she looks good, but is pretty ineffectual. Britt Eckland is there to provide some comedy relief. She has a very 1970s look, if you're into that sort of thing, but overall she's a pretty tame Bond girl as well.
Moore seems to find his stride as Bond here. Gone is the rugged machismo of Connery and in is the slightly effeminate, smooth as a silk cravat style of Moore's Bond. This movie plays more to his strength and you can kind of see how with a better script, he could play James Bond. He'd never be as good as Connery, but you can almost see how he might work in a minor light-hearted way.
The movie itself though is complete shit. You get the feeling the plot was an afterthought, put together not as a story, but as simply a series of, "Ooooh, let's have Bond do this." and "What if Bond was here and he had to do that!" And it all goes on for far too long. Again a Bond movie runs over two hours when it should have stopped about 30 minutes before it does.
I thought Live and Let Die had to be the worst Bond movie in the series, but now I'm not so sure. The Man with the Golden Gun is running a very close second. One thing about this one. The Lulu sung theme song is so catchy, it will stay with you for days.
