**YOU ARE NOW ENTERING SPOILERTOWN**
Plot: A rogue Russian general is producing fake Fabergé eggs and other jewels to fund defense weapons while planting a bomb at a circus playing an American air base in Europe, hoping the explosion will lead to European disarmament and Russian domination of the Continent. (Elaborate, eh?)
Foiled by: Bond, with the help of Octopussy and dressed as a clown, finds the bomb and disarms it before it goes off.
Intriguing Setting(s): India
Bond: Roger Moore
Villain(s):
- Octopussy
- General Orlov
- (but really, it’s Kamal Khan all along!)
Bond Girl(s):
- Octopussy – another daddy’s girl, indebted to Bond for letting her traitor English father take his own life rather than face a court martial years before. And yes, she does actually have a pet octopus.
- Magda – Khan’s henchwoman and Octopussy’s Gal Friday. She sleeps with Bond, ostensibly for a chance to steal the egg, which she does.
HL’s Hot Take: Generic on plot and heavy on stereotypes of all kinds, it’s more gimmicks and shoehorned action than great Bond fare.
Head Librarian Rank: 19/24
Critical Rank: 23/24
TRIVIA SECTION!
Odds & Ends:
- There are chases with just about every method of transport imaginable, including elephants, rickshaws, trains, planes, hot air balloons and cars; there are fight scenes in an Indian bazaar and Indian jungle, using every stereotype at hand; and there’s a clown chase. Dizzying as it is absurd.
- Released the same year as Never Say Never Again, the non-cannon Bond which brought back Connery.
6 Degrees Cameos: In another example of rehashing the same actors within the Bondverse, Maud Adams, the eponymous Octopussy, played Andrea Anders in The Man With the Golden Gun, securing her place in Bond lore as the only woman to sleep with 007 as two different characters; AND she has a cameo in the following Bond flick, A View to a Kill.
Gadgets: metal melting fountain pen
Cars: Alfa Romeo GTV6 – stolen by Bond to get to the circus before it blows the Big Top
Awards: nada
Release Order: 13/25 (1983)