Christopher Lee and not much else
Let's start off with what I liked. Setting aside the villain for later, I thought the setting and general plot was interesting. We rarely see Bond given any kind of direct conflict. Even SPECTRE saw him as a constant annoyance before they fell apart. Scaramanga, on the other hand, is a lot more interested in seeing Bond for who he is, and wants to know how his own skills measure up to them! Throw in a decent sub-plot involving solar energy that must have felt rather relevant at the time (probably still is, in some ways!), and there are some interesting things going on. I even thought the chase sequences felt pretty good, with a decent car stunt right in the middle of one!
The being said, the pacing is very inconsistent, and the execution just simply seems to lurch from scene to scene, hoping that if they imply continuity, we'll just assume it. Bond is a bit more of a jerk this time around, which can be a little hard to watch as he manhandles and manipulates the women around him. Then again, it seems like most women simply lose their willpower whenever he is in the room, to a rather ridiculous degree. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the bumbling sidekick Mary Goodnight. She's clearly into him the minute they reunite, but he simply spurns her to go "do his duty", and at first she's upset, but later can't even muster the courage to stay away from him for even an hour. Throw in the fact that she's clearly not very good at what she does, and whenever she does try to "help", things just get worse! Seriously, if she passed becoming a Foreign Affairs agents, I'd hate to see what the failures were like!
There were also a few bizarre moments that ripped me out of the movie as well. I mean, at good chunk of this movie is supposed to be taking place at Hai Fat's home in Hong Kong, right? So why does he have Sumo Wrestlers and a Karate Dojo, both of which are clearly Japanese? I mean, I get they were trying to spend a few moments jumping on the Kung-Fu bandwagon (as opposed to the blaxploitation last time), but it was pretty lame and totally thrown in for no good reason.
That being said, despite its various and apparent flaws (did we really need Sheriff Pepper to make a return?), it still ends up being very enjoyable, and that mostly because of one reason: Christopher Lee. It's obvious he's having a lot of fun, going from mysterious to playful to menacing without feeling like three different characters. He's given plenty of time to chat and be the right kind of omnipresent villain that makes Bond look over his shoulder more than once. He practically steals every scene he's in, but you don't mind because he makes it feel so natural. This dashing, rogue-ish villain that really does feel like how Bond could be if he decided to go nuts and drop his sense of duty. It's probably cliche now, but it's still pretty striking to see.
Of course, a lot of this could be boiled down to Moore not making much of an impact in this film. I was okay with him last time as it was something of a shake-up from the 60s films, keeping things safe and standard to introduce the new actor. However, now, Moore comes across as understated and kind of vanilla, like if someone tried to do a Bond rip-off, but didn't quite grasp the nuances of doing it right. Sure, Moore seems to be getting comfortable in the role, but simply trying to make up with some subtle body language and an occassional quip isn't quite enough. I'm not saying he need to emulate Connery (or Lazenby, for that matter), but it also doesn't feel like he's doing anything that unique, either. And on top of that, seeing him slap women around isn't exactly pleasant.
Ranking this one is definitely a greater challenge than last time. I do think I liked it more than Live and Let Die, as the ending pistol duel was pretty exciting (if a bit anti-climactic; I kind of wanted to see Scaramanga shoot and miss once!). I think I'll put it above Dr. No, even though that was a better structured movie, the second half falls apart, while in The Man with the Golden Gun, it stumbles along, but it's good moments are spread out better. And Christopher Lee does make up for many of the films shortcomings.
Moving further into the seventies! I've still got a lot of Roger Moore ahead of me. I hope I'm not going to regret having to watch all of these!
Bond films by rank:
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service
- Goldfinger
- You Only Live Twice
- The Man with the Golden Gun
- Dr. No
- Live and Let Die
- Thunderball
- From Russia With Love
- Diamonds Are Forever
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