The Man with the Golden Gun

'''Please have some respect for Roger Moore and Christopher Lee, who died on May 23rd, 2017 and June 7th, 2015. May they rest in peace.'''

The Man with the Golden Gun is a 1974 British-American spy film and the ninth James Bond movie, released in 1974. It is also the second movie in the series to star Roger Moore in the title role. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics and is widely considered to be one of the worst James Bond movies ever made.

Plot
Fransisco Scaramanga is a hitman who charges one million dollars per job. He becomes linked to the death of a scientist working on a powerful solar cell, and James Bond is called in to investigate. As he tracks down Scaramanga, he realizes that he is highly respected by the killer, but will this prove to be an advantage in the final showdown?

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Several events in the film happen only because of the main characters making stupid decisions.
 * 2) * Why the hell did Hai Fat decide, instead of killing Bond immediately in his house, to send him to die in a karate school? Even Scaramanga thinks it's a stupid idea.
 * 3) * The entire third act could've been avoided if Goodnight hadn't decided to go alone and put a tracker in Scaramanga's car (remember that, by that time, Bond had already got the Solex, which was much more important than taking down Scaramanga).
 * 4) The flying car looks very cheap.
 * 5) Most of the acting is rather wooden.
 * 6) Flanderization: Roger Moore's James Bond went from being charming and urbane in Live and Let Die to a huge asshole in this film. This was mandated by the studio to counteract Roger Moore's "nice guy" image", as we see him threatening to break a woman's arm, threatening to blow off a guy's testicles, and later pushing a kid salesman ("bloody tourist!") into a rapid stream during a boat chase. Having sex with Anders while Goodnight, who he was just about to have sex with, is hiding in the closet. And then she still has sex with Bond at the end! Even Roger Moore admitted that such scenes felt like they were still writing for Sean Connery. Fortunately, Moore went back to his previous portrayal for the rest of his tenure.
 * 7) Some of the jokes, whilst good, come off as a bit predictable.
 * 8) Padding: The film is prolonged by pointless meandering in a few cases. For example, why did Bond have to get the bullet in Beirut when he already had the one sent to him?
 * 9) Sheriff J.W. Pepper was a one-gag character from mh:greatestmovies:Live and Let Die, and he wasn't really needed at all for this film.
 * 10) The film feels way too camp at times.
 * 11) The fight between Bond and Scaramanga is anti-climactic, as Scaramanga runs off and gets unceremoniously shot dead by Bond after a brief game of hide-and-seek.
 * 12) * Nick Nack simply kicks Bond in the shins, throws bottles of wine at him and is defeated with a suitcase. This is admittedly justifiable given how diminutive he is, but compared to the henchmen in the films either side of this one (Tee-Hee Johnson and Jaws, respectively), the difference is glaring.
 * 13) The pacing isn't that great.
 * 14) Missed Opportunities:
 * 15) * The concept of James Bond being chased by a professional assassin hired to kill him could have been a great and most welcome change to the franchise's status quo. Unfortunately, in the second half of the film, the script forces Scaramanga to become another over-the-top villain with a superweapon, making Bond's actions more for the safety of the world than for his own life.
 * 16) ** The plot also would've worked better with Sean Connery's portrayal of Bond instead of Roger Moore's.
 * 17) * Although the climax of the film is by no means bad, the concept of Bond and Scaramanga having a showdown should have been more suspenseful, dramatic and a lot longer. Instead, Scaramanga spends almost the entire duel running away and leaving Bond to traverse his funhouse, before being shot before he manages to even pull the trigger. In fact, the duel originally would have been longer, with scenes of Bond and Scaramanga hunting each other across the island before entering the funhouse, but unfortunately the scenes were cut and only a few seconds of the footage appear in the trailer.
 * 18) * Mary Goodnight. The idea of Bond having a fellow MI6 agent helping him on the case and as the film's main Bond Girl could have been excellent. Unfortunately, the script uses Mary as absurdly clumsy and stupid fanservice. It doesn't help that the Goodnight from the novels was competent and likeable, far from the "Dumb Blonde" of this film.
 * 19) * Andrea Anders is an infinitely more interesting character than Mary Goodnight, and deserved to be the main Bond Girl of the movie. Unfortunately, the writers kill her midway through the plot, forcing Bond and the viewer to continue with Goodnight. It seems that the producers realized this mistake, considering that actress Maud Adams would return as lead Bond Girl in mh:greatestmovies:Octopussy.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Christopher Lee as Fransisco Scaramanga is easily the best part of the film.
 * 2) * "Mr. Fat has just resigned. I'm the new chairman of the board."
 * 3) The 360-degree car jump (the first-ever stunt to be entirely planned and calculated by computers, in fact) is epic, despite being ruined by the presence of a slide whistle.
 * 4) Some jokes are pretty funny, such as Bond pushing a kid into a river.
 * 5) John Barry's score is decent.
 * 6) Good direction by Guy Hamilton.
 * 7) The production design by Peter Burton is top notch, most notably Scaramanga's funhouse and the interior of the Queen Elizabeth.
 * 8) Nick Nack is one of the most memorable henchmen in the series.
 * 9) The titular golden gun is one of the most iconic items from the series, and is still used in 007 video games.

Reception
The Man with the Golden Gun met with mixed reviews upon its release. Derek Malcolm in The Guardian savaged the film, saying that "the script is the limpest of the lot and... Roger Moore as 007 is the last man on earth to make it sound better than it is." There was some praise from Malcolm, although it was muted, saying that "Christopher Lee... makes a goodish villain and Britt Ekland a passable Mary Goodnight... Up to scratch in production values... the film is otherwise merely a potboiler. Maybe enough's enough." Tom Milne, writing in The Observer, was even more caustic, writing that "This series, which has been scraping the bottom of the barrel for some time, is now through the bottom... with depressing borrowings from Hong Kong kung fu movies, not to mention even more depressing echoes of the 'Carry On' smut. "He summed up the film by saying it was "sadly lacking in wit or imagination."

David Robinson, the film critic at The Times, dismissed the film and Moore's performance, saying that Moore was "substituting non-acting for Connery's throwaway", while Britt Ekland was "his beautiful, idiot side-kick... the least appealing of the Bond heroines." Robinson was equally damning of the changes in the production crew, observing that Ken Adam, an "attraction of the early Bond films," had been "replaced by decorators of competence but little of his flair." The writers "get progressively more naive in their creation of a suburban dream of epicureanism and adventure." Writing for The New York Times, Nora Sayre considered the film to suffer from "poverty of invention and excitement", criticizing the writing and Moore's performance and finding Villechaize and Lee as the only positive points for their "sinister vitality that cuts through the narrative dough."

The Sunday Mirror critic observed that The Man with the Golden Gun "isn't the best Bond ever" but found it "remarkable that Messrs. Saltzman and Broccoli can still produce such slick and inventive entertainment". Arthur Thirkwell, writing in the Sunday Mirror's sister paper, the Daily Mirror, concentrated more on lead actor Roger Moore than the film itself: "What Sean Connery used to achieve with a touch of sardonic sadism, Roger Moore conveys with roguish schoolboy charm and the odd, dry quip." Thirkwell also said that Moore "manages to make even this reduced-voltage Bond a character with plenty of sparkle." Judith Crist of New York magazine gave a positive review, saying "the scenery's grand, the lines nice and the gadgetry entertaining", also describing the production as a film that "capture[s] the free-wheeling, whooshing non-sense of early Fleming's fairy tale for grown-ups' orientation".

Jay Cocks, writing in Time, focused on the gadgets such as Scaramanga's flying car, as what was wrong with both The Man with the Golden Gun and the more recent films in the Bond series, calling them "Overtricky, uninspired, these exercises show the strain of stretching fantasy well past wit." Cocks also criticised the actors, saying that Moore "lacks all Connery's strengths and has several deep deficiencies", while Lee was "an unusually unimpressive villain".

Trivia

 * Christopher Lee and Britt Eckland previously appeared together in The Wicker Man.
 * Alice Cooper wrote a theme song for the movie, but it was rejected in favor of one from Scottish singer Lulu.

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