The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Directed by Lewis Gilbert
Russian and British submarines with nuclear missiles on board both vanish from sight without a trace. England and Russia both blame each other as James Bond tries to solve the riddle of the disappearing ships. But the KGB also has an agent on the case.
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What critics compared The Spy Who Loved Me to
The train fight recalls Sean Connery's similar fight in From Russia with Love (1963), and the relentless, seemingly unstoppable henchman (Dave Bautista) that trails after Bond reminded me of Richard Kiel's "Jaws" character in both The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979).
Elsewhere, a drifty night-time car chase through the streets of Rome evokes memories of a much-loved child’s toy equipped with springy surprises and clip-on flames, while Dave Bautista’s Mr Hinx is essentially a latterday Jaws who gets to batter Bond on a train in a sequence that nods not only to The Spy Who Loved Me but also From Russia With Love .
Fans will feel a giddy rush seeing a villain's lair in a hollowed-out crater, a silent henchman with a brutal signature kill (Dave Bautista's Mr Hinx) and nods to everything from Goldfinger to The Spy Who Loved Me , but they paper over the cracks of a script that's big on plot - 148 minutes of it - and thrifty when it comes to character development.
Along the way they are both pursued by Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista), a burly Spectre operative in the mold of Richard Kiel’s Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979)—only one of numerous allusions to the classic Bond canon.
Meet MMA fighter turned actor Dave Bautista as Mr. Hinx, a scary bruiser who rivals Richard Kiehl as Jaws in "The Spy Who Loved Me" or Harold Sakata as Oddjob in "Goldfinger."
Skyfall is also the third film in the series starring Daniel Craig as Her Majesty’s favorite secret agent, a tricky position given that third films are often turning points in this franchise: While both Sean Connery and Roger Moore cemented their respective status as 007 with their third films, Goldfinger (1964) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), which were also the best films of their tenure, Timothy Dalton never made it to a third film after The Living Daylights (1987) and Licensed to Kill (1989) and Pierce Brosnan’s third outing as 007 in The World Is Not Enough (1999) suggested that the wheels were starting to come off the franchise (Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist named Christmas Jones—need I say more?).
A certain pretentiousness accompanies this transformation; it's possible there never again will be a James Bond movie with the snap of "Goldfinger" or the silliness of "The Spy Who Loved Me." ("Skyfall," however, does include a nice brief homage to Roger Moore's escape from the alligators in "Live and Let Die.")
As in “Skyfall” (2012), someone is trapped under a frozen lake, and the bunker where Safin breeds his toxins resembles the mega-garage where the madman in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977) parked his stolen submarines.
Grittier or more laidback elements that bring the franchise into the 21st century exist alongside a place called Poison Island, home to a lair straight out of The Spy Who Loved Me .
As for Safin, Rami Malek is slithery and creepy, but his motivations are muddled and his plan comes off as kind of a cross between earlier Bond villains like The Spy Who Loved Me ’s Karl Stromberg and Marvel’s genocidal Thanos.
The many memorable stunts are worthy of all the admiration they have frequently received (my favorite being the pre-credits ski jump of the 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me ).
At times, Inception feels like a high-concept James Bond adventure; the automatic-weapon skiing sequence feels particularly ridiculous, unless you've been longing for a blast of The Spy Who Loved Me.
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One thing for sure is Nolan’s obsession with the spy genre, given his affinity for the Bond movies, having seen The Spy Who Loved Me as a young boy with his dad.
En el fondo, la estructura básica de la cinta de Nolan es exactamente igual a la de las adaptaciones de Ian Fleming en los setenta: hay una misteriosa amenaza (generalmente guiada por un millonario megalómano como Stromberg en The Spy Who Loved Me de 1977) que Bond debe descubrir siguiendo pistas puntuales que lo llevarán a viajar por el mundo hasta que, con la asistencia mínima de ciertos ayudantes casuales, logra salvar una vez más a la desprevenida humanidad.
It's very reminiscent of the opening of the original "Star Wars" with the Star Destroyer pulling in Princess Leia's Blockade Runner (with a little of the submarine capture in "The Spy Who Loved Me" thrown in with some obvious "Mad Max" elements, too).
The forced partnership of antipodes has often proved a fertile device in storytelling, from Lethal Weapon's pairing of a black cop with a white one in 1980s LA during a period of tense race relations to that of a male spy with a female one in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me.
Certainly Roger Moore was a comparatively lightweight Bond with his seven appearances in the series: Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985).
That trend peaked in the 70s and 80s when Roger Moore took over the Bond role and the series became more and more over the top (the best of these being "For Your Eyes Only" and "The Spy Who Loved Me").
With “You Only Live Twice”, the cast was set, and about ten years later, “The Spy Who Loved Me” would even remake “Twice’s” exact plot.
Miss Lynd is an accountant, employed by Her Majesty’s Government, and, just as “The Spy Who Loved Me” is said to have burnished the sales figures for Lotus sports cars, so “Casino Royale” should transform accountancy into the most erotically charged of the professions.
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Happy's girlfriend; a haughty pro (Christopher McDonald), who is embarrassed by the presence of such an uncouth player on the tour; and a hulking fan (Richard Kiel, Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker ), who's always ready to jump to Happy's defense.
…climaxing with a trek down a mountain that feels like a high-tech remake of The Spy Who Loved Me…