Mrswing

After Moonraker's insane hijinks, Cubby Broccoli decided to put Bond back with both feet on the ground. No more sci-fi trappings, but a small-scale plot about getting your hands on a decoding device buried on the not-very-deep bottom of the Mediterranean. Also hardly any gadgets, a Citroën 2CV takes over for the top-of-the-line luxury sports cars smothered in gadgets. And the villain is just a normal smuggler, who was awarded a medal by the Brits at the end of WW2 (he must have been all of ten years old then) but who now aids the despicable KGB. Pretty cynical when you think of what the British did to the (communist) Greek resistance once the Nazis were booted out of the country. He's utterly forgettable, and has a correspondingly boring death. John Glen films everything in a bland, almost TV-show like way. There's no personality, no life to this or the majority of the following Bonds.

However, they kept the jokes. The BAD jokes. It starts with the ridiculous end to Blofeld, and just continues from there. Every action scene is riddled with gags, Bond is beset by a libidinous American teen who is only there for some really awful comic relief. Tension is almost completely absent, and the finale is so low-key it barely registers. There are a few moments where the film works (the raid on the warehouse, the climb up the mountain), but generally, comedy is king - as it would be ever increasingly until Licence To Kill.

In a way, this film isn't so much a return to Fleming as a return to Live And Let Die and Man With The Golden Gun, which were also lumbered with 'small' stories and let the comedy run away with the movie. Roger Moore's best Bond was The Spy Who Loved Me, getting the balance just right on every level. Everything before and after that was seriously flawed.

Oh, and special mention must go to Bill Conti's horrible disco soundtrack. We don't even get to hear the Bond theme in the correct style once.