Nobody Reviews It Better: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

In the dramatic fashion that only CRN can bring, today The Spy Who Loved Me is reviewed for your reading pleasure. Please stick with us as we review all the MGM 007 films.

To be clear here, the film The Spy Who Loved Me has nothing to do with Ian Fleming's novel of the same name. This may be a good thing, since it wouldn't have translated well to the screen and doesn't have a whole lot of action. But I feel it is necessary to note this fact so that Fleming cannot be held responsible for what follows. Instead of a woman being harassed by thugs, this movie is about a sea-loving individual who wants to build an underwater civilization. He also hijacks British and Russian nuclear submarines. Both governments send their best agents to investigate. The Russian one happens to be female and whose boyfriend was killed by Bond in Austria. 007 is thus put in the interesting position of having to compete with a woman while not getting killed by her or the iconic juggernaut named Jaws. Overall, I think this is one of Moore's better movies and feels very much like a Bond movie should. I concede the latter because of a few certain elements: the car chase involving a Spy Hunter-like Lotus that can turn into a submarine, the villain's outlandish lair (not quite outrageous as an active volcano, though), Bond's ability to charm a hostile woman, the widely recognizable theme song, etc. The movie flows in a logical and entertaining matter, without too many evil plot scenes that slow the movie down. The biggest problem, however, that keeps this movie from being better is the nonsensical and implausible plot of the sea-lover, Karl Stromberg. Capturing submarines is serious business, since these things are designed to be stealthy. Stromberg deals with this problem by obtaining a sub tracker in Egypt. While finding the sub is explained, what is not explained is how his giant tanker can sneak up on the subs undetected with the subs either surfaced or not too deep to be swallowed by the tanker. The concept that he can do this just seems silly. The Russian and British navies are made to be not only incompetent sailors but cowards for not scuttling these very dangerous boats. Whatever happened to the battle cry of, "Don't give up the ship!"? Bond is on one of these captured subs and rallies the captured crews to fight against their captors. It is a mystery as to why Stromberg chose to keep any of them alive, as doing so led to his downfall, making him look stupid. And perhaps he is because his plot makes no sense. What he wants to do is create an underwater civilization, which he could very well do without killing or stealing. This would easily make him a hero instead of a villain. Why he needs to create a global nuclear war is not mentioned. He just does. Overlooking these missteps is necessary to fully enjoy The Spy Who Loved Me, as well as pausing to enjoy the two Nightfire multiplayer maps that are based on environments in this movie: Stromberg's Atlantis base and submarine pen. As always, Bots make everything better.