Summary: Good solid Bond film

When 009 is killed trying to get a fake Faberge egg to the British Embassy in East Berlin. Bond is
dispatched to find out why. At an auction for the real egg he finds that Indian Prince Kamal Khan is
also interested in it. The trail leads him to a exotic smuggler called Octopussy and Russian General
Orlov.

The plot may have some holes in it and fall back on the old `Red Menace' story line by wheeling the
old Russian ghosts out pretty heavily but this Bond is a good follow on from For Your Eyes Only –
that was a step back towards a more serious Bond and this continued that trend. The action is a lot
tighter with some very good action scenes – the pre-credit scene is short but is very memorable for
one great shot. But scenes like the railway chase, the rickshaw chase etc are all good solid scenes. The
one-liners and the visual gags are also very good – less silly and less distracting and have a bit more
invention about them than your usual lazy innuendo! Here it's a lot more tongue in cheek but with a
good serious edge.

The characters are reasonably good. Moore has played down the camp edge and is a little tougher.
He even has an edge of introspection as he defends Octopussy's accusations of being an assassin.
Adams returns again as Octopussy and is pretty good – even if she's not the sexiest Bond girl in the
film. Berkoff is the baddie and plays him in true cartoon style despite having relatively little screen time.
He is the weak link in the film as he is supposed to represent the communist threat but really he is just
insane!

Despite the flaws in plotting and the usual criticisms of the bond films this stands out as one of Moore's
better Bonds. It isn't a classic in the way Goldfinger is but it is good enough to be memorable. Good
action, good one liners and a Moore who was getting better at the role (despite looking a bit too old
for it!)