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36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Bond car is an AMC Hornet!, December 6, 2002
The choice of car is symbolic of this entry -- the weakest of the entire series. The film does have some positives: Christopher Lee is very good as super assassin Francisco Scaramanga; Maud Adams is sexy and very sympathetic as the doomed Andrea Anders and the location photography in Thailand is beautiful. However, there are three very glaring weaknesses to the film that doom it to the bottom rung of Bond films.First, Hervé Villechaize is absolutely ridiculous as the "super henchman" Nick Nack. Especially after Robert Shaw as Red Grant and Harold Sakata as Oddjob, Villechaize is laughable. He is never menacing or threatening, just irritating. Villechaize grates on the audience's nerves at an increasing rate until the end when Bond neutralizes him by stuffing him in a suitcase as he whines that Bond is "a big bully." Doesn't quite match the punch of Oddjob being electrocuted by Sean Connery, does it? Britt Ekland, who is VERY sexy in Golden Gun, unfortunately is also the most inept and stupid female in the entire series. While believability has never been a hallmark of the Bond series, Ekland's Mary Goodnight is so dumb and so incompetent it makes the audience wonder why Bond doesn't have her replaced with someone who can find their butt with two hands and a copy of Gray's Anatomy. The Bond films have always been strongest when the heroines' beauty is matched by their brains -- Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, Diana Rigg as Tracy DiVicenzo, Barbara Bach as Anya Amasova, Carole Bouquet as Melina Havelock, Halle Berry as Jinx, etc. When a Bond heroine is as blindingly idiotic as Ekland's Goodnight, the series earns its reputation for treating females like decoration. Most damaging to the film, however, is its cartoonish and juvenille sense of humor. This was an unfortunate addition to the Bond series in Diamonds Are Forver which got worse in Live and Let Die and reaches its height (or nadir) in Golden Gun. Every time the film builds some dramatic tension or sets up a great action scene, it squanders the moment with stupid 10 year old level humor. During the chase along the Bangkok canals, for example, we suddenly see Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James) from Live and Let Die who just happens to be vacationing in Thailand. James is a terrific character actor, but his J.W. Pepper is to the Bond films what Jar Jar Binks was to the Star Wars films. I wish the Bond producers had had Pepper come back for The Spy Who Loved Me so the audience would have the pleasure of seeing Jaws chew him to bits. Even the film's greatest stunt is just about ruined by this infantile sense of humor. Bond, while pursuing Lee's Scaramanaga in the previously mentioned Hornet, executes a spectacular corkscrew jump over a canal. During the jump, however, the sound effects idiot in charge added a slide whistle sound effect, thereby lowering the level of the action to a Saturday morning cartoon. Time and time again, the audience is subjected to these stupid attempts at humor. The Man With the Golden Gun could have been so much better. It's too bad that this was Harry Saltzman's swan song as a Bond producer. I love Warner Brothers cartoons, but not when they're masquerading as a James Bond film.
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![The Man with the Golden Gun [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kc9PFJsjL._SL75_SS50_.jpg)
DVD ~ Roger Moore
DVD ~ Bill Ackridge
DVD ~ Roger Moore
DVD ~ Sean Connery
DVD ~ Roger Moore
