A fake Fabergé egg and a fellow agent's death lead James Bond to uncover an international jewel-smuggling operation, headed by the mysterious Octopussy, being used to disguise a nuclear attack on N.A.T.O. forces.There are many strange hings that happen in Bond films. The villains are often strange, with Jaws being the first obvious example. Here we have murdered clowns, sword-swallowers, a bed of nails... and a guy who has a yo-yo with a saw blade on the end. Not your typical spy versus spy action.There is, unfortunately, no single villain who stands out the way Jaws or Blofeld do. The problem is a rogue Russian general whose name is not very memorable and has nothing really unique about him. A good villain, to be sure, but Bond's other random antics are what really keep us going.

I was devastated that the screenwriter decided to despatch Vijay (played by Vijay Amritraj) to a gruesome death. So unfair, as he was a cheerful and loyal sidekick who helped 007 navigate his way through India, which at the time was governed by Indira Gandhi. In real life Vijay Amritraj was a professional tennis player who parlayed his skills into acting, and I would think he's the highest profile Indian to be in a James Bond movie, but I stand to be corrected.Another gruesome death occurred when a bad guy slammed head first into an aquarium and a small octopus suctioned itself on his face. Ouch, big time.Octopussy preceded Slumdog Millionaire by over 20 years, so it's interesting to contrast how two western movies depict India over two decades.

With a title like "Octopussy" I was expecting something more unique and different, perhaps bizarre. However this is another movie where Roger Moore plays James Bond in a way that is full of silliness although the plot tries to have that Indiana Jones vibe going for it. It just seems that the Bond franchise tries to emulate films that are popular films around that time. So in this Bond goes swinging from tree vine to vine in order to escape the bad guys while yelling like Tarzan, to him using the street entertainers equipment to fight of the bad guys, to him being inside a mechanical alligator in order to disguise himself (which is something that inspired Hideo Kojima for "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater". It even goes as far to break the barrier when it comes to lameness by getting Bond to dress up like a clown. Like the past Bond movies with Roger Moore, it's a movie that you just can't take seriously. The plot can be difficult to follow, except that it revolves around some prized egg jewel and a detonator. When it comes to the battle of the Bonds, between "Never Say Never Again" and this. I think the reason this made more money when it came to box office was because of this was a official canon movie in the Bond franchise while "Never Say Never Again" was a rehash and is not officially a Bond movie in the original franchise. So although "Octopussy" won when it came to the box office numbers, but I personally think "Never Say Never Again" is the better Bond film and not just because of Connery. I give this one a 4.5 out of 10 because it does have the best intro scene compared to the previous Bond films.4.5/10

Of course, I wrote in my For Your Eyes Only review that I appreciated the tongue and cheek being toned down a bit, only to be overwhelmed with goofiness with Osctopussy. There's a lot of entertainment to be had with this film, but sadly I felt a ton of opportunities were wasted.It seemed as though the plot was going to shift the motivations of the lead villain from craving world domination down to simply a jewel thief. To me, that was intriguing. Bringing the stories to a more realistic focus would have been compelling for this film. But instead we got a mess of a film. I'm just very tired of the use of nuclear weapon's for the lead villain. It's been used over and over again. Not every bad guy has nukes. I also felt they took the setting of India and abused it a bit. I'm sorry but how many different animals were used as spectacles or traps for Bond? Bond literally tells a wild tiger to sit down, and it listens. It got a bit ridiculous, especially knowing how noticeably fake most of them were. Certainly some of the sequences can be entertaining, but when a professional tennis player's cameo turns into him beating villains over the head with a tennis racket overpowering machine guns, you know you've taken it too far.But it's disappointing that this film didn't take advantage at having a female antagonist. The series thus far hasn't had a lead female villain, and I thought for awhile it would be the first. She was hidden from the audience for a good portion of the film similar to Blofeld which made for an interesting proposition. Sadly, 'Octopussy' turns out to be just like most other Bond girls. On the flip side, Q gets to play a bigger role which was a good change up from being back at MI6 all the time. There's no denying this film's entertainment, but there's just too many missed opportunities.+Q is a bigger part+Very good first half-Missed opportunities-Yet another nuclear obsessed villain5.5/10