Review Detail

It’s hard for me to judge these old Bond films. They suffer from the success of the franchise. Imitated and parodied endlessly; from Austin Powers to even Nolan movies, the tropes now seem completely cliche. That said, I do think this movie gets a bit of bad rap and certainly Lazenby does. It works best when it does its own thing. The relationship between Bond and Tracy works, in no short degree thanks to the chemistry between Lazenby and Rigg. And that is refreshing. The more serious side of Bond works. But it frustratingly seems to want it both ways. And the sillier Bondisms mostly fall flat. The screenplay itself is puzzling. Again, it seems to want to carry on with Bond as if there’s nothing different, but then it contradicts that often. The worst error is leaving Tracy out of the film for the bulk of the middle only to way-too-conveniently emerge for the last act. I admit I’m revisiting this one because we’re heading to the Jungfrau region and Lauterbrunnen valley next month. And that scenery was fantastic. Overall, I feel like I ended up liking this movie less than I remembered. But, as I said at the outset, I think that may be due in large part to the impact of the Bond series overall. It’s probably been more than 30 years since I last watched it.

Given that I don’t have much direct memory of the movie, I have a hard time comparing the edit to the theatrical. But I’ll say the editing was never noticeable for me so Last Survivor again did a terrific job both technically and narratively editing the film. And one thing I do remember that LS has thankfully cut is the fourth wall breaking “other guy” quip. That change alone makes this edit worth it.