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Live and Let Die (1973)
Premise: Three 00 agents are killed in the field, prompting 007 to investigate, which brings him into the world of Blaxploitation and voodoo.
This is Roger Moore's first crack as Bond and while I like the structure of the introduction to start off the movie, Moore's actual introduction as Bond is kind of weak. With Lazenby and Dalton, specifically, there was a little bit of a tease before revealing the new actor. Moore is just shown in bed with a woman but it's a bit of a missed opportunity in a meta-sense. The actual pre-title sequence is pretty neat, because it shows us three deaths in rather mysterious circumstances and very different places but we don't know what we're seeing yet. We have a voodoo ceremony, a New Orleans street funeral, and a United Nations speech in seemingly unconnected murders. Then, the title sequence kicks in and the song is an absolute classic and the images and iconography are legendary and among the best of the series.
Less so is the ongoing score, however. The best Bond movies use the title sequence to infuse musical motifs throughout an otherwise original score that reflects the emotions and tones of the various scenes. This just seems to use the instrumental of the song over and over through the whole movie and then again, the full Paul McCartney version over the end credits. Despite having a great song, it's over/improperly used in the main score.
This is like a analogy for the whole of the movie. Live and Let Die has many of the absolute best things in all of Bond. The whole, however, is much less than the sum of its parts.
Bond, himself is corny and gross. In every situation that involves a woman and romance, it doesn't work for one reason or another. I think I'm just liking Roger Moore's take on Bond less and less as I age. It's not even like it's outdated, like Connery -- Bond is perverse and rapey, but it makes the woman come across as weak and the relationships are not convincing. In the beginning of the film, Bond is in bed with a woman and M and Moneypenny show up at his flat, which is a strange choice -- not sure why your boss is mission briefing unannounced at your home, but Bond has to hide the woman in his closet. I think it's because the woman is of importance to the previous mission as an Italian agent that they cannot locate. I suppose there's humor there. It does a good job of introducing Q's signature gadget for the film, a magnetic watch.
Bond is placed in Harlem which I love. I like when a Bond film feels from the era in which it was produced and this captures 1970s black crime films like Shaft (1971) and Superfly (1972). It makes for a fun funky soundtrack in parts, location-specific villains and allies and surprises, and some great fish out of water moments for Bond. Bond gets to drive in a pimp wagon, for example. It's all great.
Unfortunately, I think that the plot doesn't make sense, isn't clear, or I just didn't get it -- either from watching the film or researching afterword. I don't really get the motivation for killing the three agents -- I guess it's to prevent them from investigating their heroin scheme, but I don't really get why British agents pose a risk to Harlem drug dealing and it also seems to have had the adverse affect of putting a secret agent on their trail. This type of loose logic follows the entire plot of the film. Bond ends up in a bunch of cool places, but the movie doesn't seem all that interested in driving home the connection between these places.
Bond ends up in the Bayou on an alligator farm and we get some henchmen work with a guy with a claw for a hand. This is a nice excuse for some good gadget use and subversion as well as one of the best stunts, not only in the history of Bond, but in all of films...ever. Then we are introduced to the cartoon-character of a racist small-town sheriff, J.W. Pepper. He's a bumbling fat cop, in a precursor to the Dukes of Hazzard's Boss Hogg. I see what they were going for, but it's it's about two-shades too silly and over-acted, to the point of caricature over character.
Also along the way, we get another agent, Rosie Carver. Nothing about this character or subplot works for me, either. I think the concept of a black agent in a badass role, like what would become Foxy Brown (1974) would've been an interesting choice. Instead, we get a shrieking scaredy-cat and Bond gets to crank up the inappropriate perviness.
We also get our main Bond girl, Solitaire, played by Jane Seymour. She is forced into the villain's servitude because of her psychic powers that she will lapse once she loses her virginity. Bond's treatment of her is grotesque and I think it's the worst thing he does (in terms of lack of character) in the entirety of the series. Then, to try to turn that into a love story also doesn't work. Roger Moore's Bond is a complete creep and sexual predator. However, all of the stuff around it -- giving Bond a brush up with what could be the actual supernatural is an interesting take and a swerve for the genre.
Another wrinkle is the film's hiding the ball and eventual reveal of the main villain. It's a good idea on paper but the film doesn't do anything with it. It's not even that it's bad execution, but the plot doesn't feel like it gives me a reason for this twist to exist. Again, good idea -- the plot doesn't support it.
We then get a spectacular and interesting boat chase that takes advantage of the setting. 5 stars. But when it's over, Bond just ends up at the next location. It's like the movie cut out the connective tissue to get him from one place to another. We finally get a sequence with Baron Samedi, one of the most iconic character designs in the series. Unfortunately, despite teasing him, the film doesn't really use him in an interesting way. He's dispatched quickly and uninterestingly and we move on to the final battle with the main antagonist. This is cartoony, but despite that, it's fun and the right amount of silly for the tone, so I'll allow it.
There is a bit of an epilogue that brings back some danger but I don't think the film earns its ending -- again, the concept is cool -- but the plot doesn't really support it. And in this final stretch, Moore delivers some Austin Powers-esque Dad puns. Pretty cringey.
This is a weird movie for me. It has so many things that I love on paper -- good villain, good henchman, great song/title and pre-title setup, interesting locations and setting, supernatural themes that aren't yet explored in the series, fantastic stunts, and a whole blaxploitation genre-bend that takes advantage of its cinematic place in time and allows for some great subversions of the classic tropes. But it just doesn't come together and the end result is a disappointing Bond movie. Because there's so much good, it's still out of the bottom of the barrel, but I place this below some other films that are less memorable. But when the plot and character relationships aren't coherent or convincing, no amount of set-dressing can save it.
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