“When you were young and your heart was an open book, you used to say “live and let live,”
(You know you did, you know you did you know you did).
But if this ever changing world in which we live in makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die.”
And thus begins the Roger Moore era of Bond films. Depending on your viewpoint, this film ranges from “hot” to “a hot mess.” Bond is dispatched to New York after three agents are killed in New Orleans, the Carribean, and New York and uncovers a conspiracy bathed in vodoo bayou superstition, urban swagger, and just plain, dumb drugs. Along the way he encounters psychic priestess Solitaire, played by a young Jane Seymour, and proceeds to deflower her. And aside from those characters, every other “character” is more of a caricature of some aspect of the Ugly American: from clueless CIA agent Felix Leiter (poor Felix, how far you’ve fallen!) and hapless Rosie Carter, to ignorant backwoods Louisiana State Trooper J W Pepper to the numerous blaxploitation tropes in all of the villainous black villains, the characters range from blah to bleh!
Let us once again convene the robot roundtable to discuss our exasperation with this film. Swank, start us off.
Swank-mo-tron: Live and Let Die would have you believe that every black American is involved in a global voodoo conspiracy. No wonder it took us so long to get a black president. Neither Yaphet Kotto nor Baron Samedi are the villain in this film, it’s all black people everywhere.
No wonder Paul McCartney felt compelled to record Ebony and Ivory less than a decade later, to make up for this racist tosh. And there are trap doors and floors in EVERY building everyone enters… It’s absurd. I used to think this was the ONLY bearable Bond film of the Roger Moore era, but I realize now that there’s no such thing.
Roger Moore is already showing his age in this film and it’s only downhill from here. From the racist southern sheriff to every jive-talking dude in a pimp-mobile, this plays more like Smokey and the Bandit than James Bond.
Citizenbot: Smokey and the Bandit. Yes. People also have this overinflated recollection of the awesomeness of the boat chase. It just isn’t so. As cool as it was to see a boat jump over a levee and some cop cars, it’s just so ridiculous to make it laughable. It became a little tiresome, even. Like, oh, ok, it’s been 5 minutes. . . you’re still boating away? And your grand master plan was to get the bad guys to boat into a swimming pool? Dumb.
And mentioning the theme song, while this was the most successful Bond theme up to that time, and was nominated for an Academy Award, it is really both bland and over the top at the same time for the guy who wrote “Yesterday” and “Back in the USSR.” I not only own every Beatles album but every McCartney solo album, and this is about as middling as it gets, in my opinion. It started out with promise, then turned into mediocrity: a commentary on the film itself if there ever was one.
Swank-mo-tron: I will say, it was nice to see Bond pulling an R2-D2 with his watch at the end, but Kananga inflating like a blow-up doll was ridiculous. I don’t demand realistic Bond films, but I do demand some level of realism.
Citizenbot: I almost have to give them credit for their audacity, though. Yes, because, as we previously showed, both a leather couch and a human body can be stretched out like they’re made of latex. And? Couches when inflated stay on the ground. But human bodies, when inflated, float. And then explode. Worst. Villain Death. Ever. You know what else I learned? You can walk on crocodiles. Ok, maybe you can’t. But Bond can. And the frog in Frogger.
Swank-mo-tron: Since there are still worse Bond’s out there, I’m giving this one 1.5 martinis out of 4.
Citizen-bot: I didn’t hate it quite that much. It was just mediocre. It was a step up from Diamonds Are Forever (that’s not saying much), so I’d go with a straight 2 martinis.
Consensus: 1.75 martinis
