Octopussy (1983)
Synopsis
Someone’s forging Fabergés so they can steal real ones from the Kremlin. But why? Bond is on the case but the path to enlightenment is needlessly convoluted; it’ll involve twins, clowns, a gorilla suit, a cannon, a Soviet diva and a woman with a hilarious name. Can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?
Particulars
Director: John Glen
Writer/s: Richard Maibaum, Michael G. Wilson and George MacDonald Fraser
Producers: Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli
Stars: Roger Moore as James Bond, Maud Adams as Octopussy, Louis Jourdan as Kamal Khan, Steven Berkoff as General Orlov, Vijay Amritraj as Vijay, David Meyer and Anthony Meyer as Mischka and Grischka, Robert Brown as M, Walter Gotell as General Anatoly Gogol, Desmond Llewelyn as Q and Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny.
Budget: $27.5 million
Shot: India, West Berlin, the UK and Pinewood Studios
Based on: Octopussy and the Living Daylights, the 14th and final book (a collection of short stories) in Ian Fleming’s James Bond series
Memorable name, mid movie
This is another weird one in that it manages to be both bonkers and a bit boring. Maybe it’s due to the script being rewritten and based on the stranger than fiction tale of a Soviet General’s son-in-law using the Moscow State Circus to smuggle jewellery. Maybe something got lost in translation.
Or maybe it’s due to the fact that non-Eon Bond film Never Say Never Again (marking Sean Connery’s second return to the character) had been announced and the filmmakers thought that forcing poor old Rog to stay on and partake in literal farce would be a competitive strategy.
Octopussy is somewhat enjoyable nonsense that isn’t nonsensical enough to become a camp classic. Here’s what I liked.
A handful of scenes that stand out
There are few things in life I enjoy more than watching a rich person being baited into overpaying for something at an auction, and that’s precisely what happens in Octopussy. Bond not only inflates the price of a Fabergé egg at Sotheby’s, knowing full well MI6 doesn’t have the funds to buy it if he accidentally ends up the highest bidder, he also switches it out for a fake one so the buyer — Afghan prince Kamal Khan — then has to do more work to secure the correct one. To add insult to injury, Bond also beats Khan in backgammon by insisting on using Khan’s dice (which are loaded), thus hustling the hustler.
There are also some decent stunts in this one, including J. W. "Corkey" Fornof’s pre-title plane stunt, the train sequence (in which Moore’s stunt double Martin Grace broke his leg) and the Tom Cruise-style outer plane work at the end of the film.
Villain, ally and girl baddies
General Orlov (Steven Borkoff) is an absolute DIVA and his plot for Soviet expansion across Western Europe by smuggling a nuclear bomb via his mate’s circus is deranged. Does it make sense? No. Do I still enjoy watching him crash out? Yes.
Octopussy also contains one of the more endearing allies in Vijay (Vijay Amritraj), Bond’s MI6 contact in India who plays a snake charmer cover of the ‘James Bond Theme’ and provides intel on Kamal Khan. His brutal murder by saw yo-yo is pretty disturbing and was the only point in the film where I sat up and took notice. This sad moment is unfortunately dulled by the fact that Bond has just swum up in his alligator vessel prior to learning of Vijay’s death. He would’ve wanted it that way, I’m sure.
While I don’t think Octopussy (Maud Adams’ antiheroine) is a particularly strong Bond girl, I do like that she smuggles jewellery, has her own lush manor and recruits women to train them to become entrepreneurs of questionable legality like she is. Women supporting women!
And now, the stuff that Octopussy gets wrong.
The plot is well and truly lost
It’s really hard to remember or comprehend how a jewellery smuggling madame, an Afghan prince, twins who look like Gary Oldman and an irate Soviet general with nuclear ambitions fit together. If it weren’t for some of the film’s more ridiculous elements capturing my attention, it would’ve faded the way it did during Thunderball.
The sheer disrespect shown to Rog
I feel like Roger Moore is owed some sort of compensation for the shit they made him do in this film. He’s in a gorilla suit. He’s emerging from an alligator contraption like Ace Ventura. He’s swinging through the trees literally making a Tarzan call.
And finally, he’s in clown makeup, which feels like some sort of meta humiliation on this poor 56-year-old man who’d already done more Bond films than initially agreed and who’d wanted to get out after For Your Eyes Only.
The sitcom style song
There’s a brutal irony in writing a song called ‘All Time High’ and it being another dorky dud but that’s unfortunately what happened with the theme to Octopussy. John Barry and Tim Rice wrote it with the intention being to really signal to audiences that Octopussy was a Bond film of inarguable quality. The song did fine on the charts but I regard it with the same distaste I had for Sheena Easton’s ‘For Your Eyes Only’ and when my Bond playlist decides to serve it up, I skip 100% of the time.
Weighing up my gripes and likes about Octopussy, it lands somewhere in the centre of my current live ranking. Better than the worst, but worse than many that are better.
RANKING CATEGORIES (70%)
Bond execution = 7
Villain = 7
Bond girl(s) = 5
Song = 3
Opening titles = 5
Plot/action/gadgets = 6
Franchise identity = 4
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT (30%)
6/10