Rating: ★★★½ (3.5/5)
I always thought that George Lazenby was somehow a second class Bond. A Bond that was worth forgetting. An actor that only did one movie because he wasn’t good enough at portraying the character. A lot of this thought came from friends of mine who seemingly had more Bond knowledge than I ever did.
George Lazenby is great. He deserves better.
The fact that he did one movie, doesn’t at all indicate how good that movie was. This movie was maybe one of my favorites overall, especially amongst the early Bond movies. Lazenby had a massive job to do in picking up a movie franchise from the GOAT that is Sean Connery. It’s easy to look back at it now and say, “he was just another Bond,” but up to this point we only had one. We didn’t have a tradition of picking “the new Bond” every time an actor decided to bow out. This was the first time we tried it and he pulled it off.
In addition to Lazenby being pretty dang good at this, we had an incredible villain in Terry Savalas’ Blofeld. I had no idea that he had played Bond’s Moriarty until I watched this movie. Savalas absolutely steals the show anytime he’s on screen. I love watching him work and I think he did an incredible job with this one.
If I had any complaints about this movie, it’s that it just runs too dang long. The action sequences dragged on and they pushed for special effects that just didn’t work. This was before Star Wars came along and showed the world what films were capable of. I get that they wanted to show Bond skiing down a mountain with a ton of guys chasing him, but boy did it take me out of the moment just due to how terrible it looked. I don’t even have to dive into the bobsled scene. All the action was just a little too much and too long.
This movie overall is one of my favorites that I’ve had the pleasure of watching while recording 24 FPS Presents… Season 2. I didn’t expect to like it, and I walked out wondering why Lazenby didn’t do more Bond movies. Apparently he just wasn’t that into it. Dude had what it took to carry the franchise for a while if he wanted to. I was very impressed.