Octopussy may have the most ludicrous plot for a James Bond movie, and that’s saying something. We’ve had two where the villain launched a laser satellite (Diamonds are Forever and Die Another Day). In A View to a Kill, Christopher Walken planned to cause an earthquake to destroy Silicon Valley. You Only Live Twice (scripted by Roald Dahl!) has a spaceship that eats other spaceships. This was retooled in The Spy Who Loved Me with a supertanker that eats submarines. We haven’t even mentioned Moonraker, in which James Bond actually goes to outer space!
Tongue firmly planted in cheek, this describes the plot of Octopussy: “a circus clown foils an attempt by a deposed Afghan prince and rogue Russian general to destroy a circus with a nuclear bomb.” This doesn’t even touch on the titular jewel smuggler who established an all-female smuggling ring organized around the “Octopus cult.”
Octopussy usually rates in the bottom third of Bond movies, though without the rancor surrounding The Man with the Golden Gun, A View to a Kill, or Die Another Day. The elegaic tone, which starts with Rita Coolidge’s theme “All Time High”, accounts for some of this. Moore was clearly too old, and casting a returning Maud Adams against him eliminated some of the icky sexual politics from the previous film For Your Eyes Only. The action sequence surrounding the train crossing the German border is well-done, despite its inherent implausibility. Douglas Wilmer is fun in a small role as an art expert. Kabir Bedi has memorable turn as monster heel Gobinda.
That said, there are significant problems. Roger Moore was 56 when this came out, and he looks it. Daniel Craig was 52 when No Time to Die was made, and you can see the effects of a modern conditioning regime. The early 1980s were a different era. Steven Berkoff goes completely over the top as General Orlov, a rogue Russian general who wants to provoke a war with NATO. In series full of non-Russians (Walter Gotell, John Rhys-Davies, Barbara Bach) playing Russians, Berkoff stands out in a bad way.
The plot is needlessly complex. See if you can follow. Orlov is involved in jewel smuggling with Octopussy (Maud Adams) and Kamal Kahn, a deposed Afghan prince (affably played by Frenchman Louis Jourdan). Separately, Orlov is chafing under current Kremlin leadership, personified by Bond series regular General Gogol (Walter Gotell), who favor accommodation with the West. Orlov’s plan is to use his smuggling contacts to smuggle a nuclear bomb on to a United States Air Force base in West Germany and then detonate it. The resulting controversy will encourage unilateral disarmament in West Europe, which will then be ripe for the taking. Into all this steps Bond, gentleman adventurer, who picks up the trail after a stolen Fabrege egg turns up at the British embassy in Berlin.
Bond films are renowned for cultural insensitivity. Midway through the film is an auto-rickshaw (Tuk-Tuk) chase through the streets of Delhi, in which Gobinda targets Bond with an elephant gun. During this case, we encounter a man lying on a bed of nails, a sword-swallower, and a crowded marketplace with a camel. Bond eventually shakes off his pursuers by throwing up a pile of money and yelling “Rupee!” We’re a long way from a terrified Bond fleeing henchmen during the Junkanoo in Thunderball.
Moore’s tenure as Bond should have ended here. It’s passable, the elegiac tone points that way, and he was already obviously far too old for the role (he looked too old in For Your Eyes Only). Sadly he came back once more in A View to a Kill, which is out-and-out a bad entry and much harder to watch.