Live and Let Die

Hello folks, sorry for not posting anything over the last month. I've been super lazy lately and as fun as writing reviews is, it's still work. Anyways, I'm back and ready to review some films!

Bond. James Bond. These three words are so legendary everybody knows who James Bond is. The original gentleman spy. The man who has the best job in the world. Cool cars, cool gadgets and cool women, what's not to love about James Bond?

Well, that might be one thing not to love about him.

So, today, I'm reviewing the 8th James Bond movie, Live and Let Die. This movie is one of my all time favorite Bond films and probably has some of the best chase scenes in movie history. So, as they say at MI6, "Bring back the car in one piece."

The Plot:
Several MI6 agents are killed in a span of 24 hours and Agent 007 is called in to finish what they started. Why'd they all die?, you ask. They were all keeping an eye on Dr. Kanaga, a Caribbean dictator. Sounds suspicious. Anyways, J.B. takes off and enters the world of voodoo and whoodoo and drugs. He meets Solitaire, Kanaga's personal fortune teller and immediately gets into trouble. As the mystery unravels, 007 discovers Kanaga is planning to give away 2 tons of heroin for free in order to monopolize the drug industry, then sell the heroin to the highest bidder. 007 manages to bring down Kanaga's drug business with planes, boats and some good old fashioned shoot outs. James Bond stops Kanaga by, well, over inflating his personality, so to speak.

The Good:
The story's pretty good for a Bond film. It's the first one that doesn't have a palm rubbing, mustache twirling villain who wants to take over the world. The bad guy, Kanaga, just wants to own the drug business and nothing else. I like that. Roger Moore as Bond is entertaining. He cracks jokes even when he's in serious trouble. Tee Hee, the villain in the video above is hilarious, because he's always laughing inappropriately, and he's pretty terrifying. Then there's the boat chase. That's right, not a car chase, a boat chase. This is one of the best movie chase scenes ever. It's suspenseful and has comedy at the right times. Then, the best line of all time:

Oh, and some of the set pieces in this movie....stunning. Mr. Big's (Kanaga) lair is...awesome. The underground cave near the end, beautiful.

The Bad:
There's not a whole lot of bad stuff in this movie, but I did find some. Let's start with Rosie Carver, a double agent who works for Kanaga. She has to lead Bond somewhere to kill him or Kanaga's men kill him, I'm not sure. Anyways, worst double agent ever. She screams a every little thing, even to the point where Bond gets sick of it. She's useless and had no point in being in the film at all. Some of the situations Bond gets himself in are easily escapable. There's one scene where Bond sits in a chair, then Tee Hee pushes a button and the world's easiest to break out of hand braces "trap" Bond. Maybe Bond knew that, maybe Kanaga's men had guns. Who knows. Moore tries to look like they're super tight, but these hand bindings rest comfortably on Bond. And finally, 007's CIA buddy, Felix Leiter. Dude's seriously the dumbest CIA agent ever. One of his men gets killed and instead of investigating as to why his agent isn't where he's supposed to be Felix says "He must lying down of the job." Har har. Later, Bond falls in one of Kanaga's traps while Felix gets a phone call from his dead man. (How does that work?) Anyways, Felix comes back, asks the waiter where Bond is and gets hushed. Does Felix get worried and go looking for Bond? Of course not. The CIA should have fired this hack a long time ago.

Over all:
Live and Let Die is a fun movie to watch. There's good lines, good story, good characters and fun for the family. As I said, it's one of my favorite Bond movies.

Rating:
5 Secret agents on whose side?! out of 5.