The Man With the Golden Gun
WHAT. A PILE. OF SHIT. Now, going into a Roger-Moore-as-Bond film, one has to expect a certain level of lameness, and a whole lot of belief-suspension if you want to enjoy yourself, but this was just too much. First off, I don't know why people could describe the hitman villain Scaramanga's third nipple, but not apparently his face. As far as acting went, Christopher Lee as Scaramanga was probably the best actor in the film. Of course, that's not saying much. Furthermore, aside from the odd coolness of the golden gun, he wasn't even that great of a villain, really. Maybe I'm just fed up with Bond villains in general, but he could have killed Bond a hundred times by the end of the film, which makes him a damned lousy hitman. I know he wanted the challenge of going one-on-one with Bond in the end duel, but ... I dunno, it was just awkward. Especially when Bond visits Scaramanga on his island and they walk around for ten minutes. Scaramanga not only passes up a chance to shoot Bond, but disarms himself, after which Bond not only fails to kill Scaramanga, but watches stupidly as Scaramanga blows up his plane.
Bond himself felt strange in this film. Though Roger-Moore-as-Bond films usually have a sillier approach to things, Bond did an awful lot of slapping women around in this one. Really, more so than any other Bond picture, I felt embarrassed for any women who had anything to do with this film. Aside from being slapped around, hurled under bed covers and thrown into closets while the man they were going to get busy with was getting busy with another woman, the one actress spent the last twenty minutes in a bikini for absolutely no reason. There was a throwaway line by Scaramanga abut how you can't conceal weapons in a bikini, but that just made his character seem freaking creepy.
Hell, speaking of characters taken in an odd direction, M was an angry little bitch in this movie. I thought he was going to strangle Bond at several points.
The film was just filled with illogical scenes and plot points (yeah, I know saying that about a film like this is redundant, but STILL). At one point Bond was going to have dinner with Scaramanga's boss, but instead of showing up and being blown away by Scaramanga, he is met in the garden by sumo wrestlers and a dwarf in a mask with a trident. After enthusiastically groping the GIANT NAKED ASS CHEEKS of the sumo wrestler, Bond gets conked out. The man he was going to meet, rather than letting him be killed with few witnesses deep in the heart of his heavily-guarded fortress, instead sends Bond to his martial arts school. Where, apparently, people are trained by killing the shit out of each other. I guess you've got to be a pretty damn good student to last very long. What follows is actually one of my favorite parts despite the stupidity, because we see Bond get the shit kicked out of him. He survives, unfortunately, by flying through a wall. The building full of specially trained martial artist killers empties, but Bond's Asian friend with the nieces pulls up. After which the nieces, who look about fifteen and are skinny as all get out, beat the crap out of a dozen guys twice their size while Bond stands there for the most part like a dumbass.
Another completely unnecessary addition to the film is the redneck sheriff, who is rather like W.C. Fields, if you took W.C. Fields and made him twice as obnoxious (yes, it's apparently possible). He follows Bond around for the stars know what reason, saying some of the stupidest lines ever uttered in a Bond film. I ASSUME he was supposed to be comedy relief, in the same way that Jar Jar Binks was supposed to be comedy relief. There is even one line in which he incorrectly identifies a Democrat symbol. The way the scene played didn't seem as though it was part of some gag, so I'm forced to assume that the script writers were just outright ignorant.
I actually wanted to shoot the character. With a missile launcher.
The best/most horrid part was in the very end, after Scaramanga has been dispatched insanely easily in his Funhouse. Bond and the last remaining female character are snogging on a ship they stole from the villain. A magic panel comes out of the floor with a magic phone that magically has the magic M on the other line. How he knew they were on the ship, or how he knew/called the secret phone panel on the ship, I'll be damned if I can tell you. After calling the woman's name ('Goodnight'), Bond informs him that 'She's just coming, sir!'
I laughed, because by that point I didn't know what else to do. I laughed similarly when they said 'Bottoms up' and the scene switched to a giant shot of a woman's ass. It's just so damned idiotic you can't help but laugh.
I won't even go into how weird it is to tie murderous dwarfs up in a cage tied to the topmost part of your ship. Or how odd it was that the villain's evil plan was basically to switch everyone over to solar power (OH STARS THE HORROR).
Worst pun of the whole thing: Bond (after ripping off a fake third nipple he'd used to impersonate Scaramanga): "I think he found me quite ... titillating!" Runner-up: Bond (when told about Scaramanga's third nipple: "What an interesting anatomical titbit!"
TITBIT?!
Seriously. What a pile of unrepentant ass. Since I intend to see every Bond film ever, I hope they don't go much lower than this. I'd rather watch Moonraker again.