James Bond has certainly has a lot of films over the years. While Bond himself may spend a good chunk of his screentime getting kicked around, he always rises back up to end the threat. I’m not typically a fan of his movies for their over-reliance on fanservice and terrible romances but the action scenes tend to be fun. The movies have a good blend of humor mixed into the fight scenes. This one also has one of the best enemies in the entire series. That being said, it ends up falling into line with a lot of the other films.

The movie starts with an assassin taking out a powerful gunman. This man is Scaramanga, the world’s number one hit man. His trademark is a signature golden gun by which he finishes off his prey. This guy’s next target is James Bond, Britain’s top agent from MI6. He has the agency so scared that Bond is immediately taken off of his mission and fired. The only way for Bond to get his old work back is for him to take this guy down but nobody’s even seen Scaramanga before. This won’t be an easy fight.

I will say that MI6 looks absolutely terrible here for them to panic so quickly. Yes, Scaramanga is a dangerous foe but this level of panic should be reserved for taking on a whole government right? For a single man to make them bench the #1 agent is crazy. I don’t think M could possibly come back from this. Fortunately Bond is quick to get out there and end this would be assassin. It’s the only real way to move forward if we’re being realistic about this.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t say that Bond is a great character though. As always he is distracted by every woman around and he can never truly keep his eyes on the prize. He has to rely on his plot armor most of the time in order to stay in the game because there are many chances for him to be removed. The villains had him dead to rights but sent him to school instead of finishing him off. A bizarre decision to be sure.

He doesn’t take his coworker seriously either and spends the whole time flirting with her instead of trying to come up with a plan. Yes, Goodnight was a poor agent who just held him back but Bond should have still been able to find some way for her to be of assistance instead of adding onto that. Anytime Bond is fooling around with these various characters, it is more time that he could have spent staying in a ready position with his guard up.

Bond gets results which is why he is known as the number one agent but at the same time he nearly dies constantly. Personally in terms of overall skill I would have to lean on Scaramanga here. In a one on one fight I believe he would defeat Bond. You could argue that Scaramanga did not think so since he ended up evading the one on one fight for his more theatrical version. That ended up being a mistake on his part.

Scaramanga is a full on villain so you can’t let his gamesmanship fool you. He doesn’t treat his allies particularly well and was quick to bump off the girl who was working with him. She probably had the most tragic role here since there was really no way out for her from the start. Death was always going to be the end result and it’s not like Bond really helped her to get past that here. Ultimately he wasn’t in the best place to help her either since time was ticking and he didn’t really have anyone to trust. That said, you still could have hoped that things would go better for her.

You’d almost think this was the only plot around but the Bond films are always able to cram a lot of story into these adventures. So we also had Hai who hired Scaramanga and was working with solar technology that could end the energy crisis. He gets rather overconfident for somebody who can’t fight which results in his end though. Honestly he may have been doomed either way but the way he went out just made the guy look silly.

We didn’t really need this plot or the whole karate interlude though. Sure we got to see Bond score some more wins and take advantage of terrible villain plans but it didn’t actually move the film forward. Personally I would have spent that time further hyping up Scaramanga and maybe even having Bond do some training to prepare for the battle. It’s a bit hard to picture since both characters are extremely arrogant but would have been interesting. Their inevitable matchup is easily what you are looking forward to throughout the movie. Everything else is ultimately just noise.

So the negatives with the film all stem from the endless fanservice and one night stands here. None of the romances are worth anything and they’re just here to pad out the film. It’s why I always look forward to seeing a more serious Bond who is ready to take on the villains without fooling around. While the film is very long, I would say that the pacing is generally fine. There is always a lot going on so it doesn’t drag on. The fight scenes are also pretty good.

They feel rather old school with how they aren’t overly choreographed or anything like that. This is a basic fight with good hand to hand at all times. Bond also looks very mortal as he is stronger than the average fighter but isn’t the world’s best or anything. We even have a classic car chase which works well. The overactive sheriff may be a tad too silly for some but generally tends to be a fun character. The absurdity just works especially since the film as a whole was pretty light hearted anyway. He would probably overstay his welcome if the scenes were too much longer.

Overall, This film did a good job of finally giving Bond a true one vs one fight to look forward to. Sure, Bond does lose a lot and tends to be out planned by the villains but this is one of the few times where the whole film is building up to such an encounter. I appreciated that and while it couldn’t do enough for the film to beat out its own issues, this still made for a pretty memorable experience. If you really like Bond films then I would recommend checking this one out.

Overall 4/10