The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

Rating: C

Dir: Lewis Gilbert
Star: Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jürgens, Richard Kiel

[22] Opens with one of the best pre-credit sequences (the Union Jack parachute ski-jump), albeit spoiled by truly dreadful back projection. This sets the tone for the whole film, which is grand, providing you don’t look at it too closely – the plot bears a strong resemblance to lace; lightweight and full of holes. Still, there’s good use of locations, and Jaws is one of the all-time evil sidekicks, to go alongside one of the all-time cars, the Lotus Esprit. Barbara Bach, as Soviet agent Triple X, makes a better assistant to Bond than an adversary, and things perk up notably after the first act, which largely consists of pottering round in pursuit of a microfilm.