With a lot of Bond craze going on with the release of Skyfall (which I thought was a pretty good back to basics Bond movie), I recorded On Her Majesty’s Secret Service because I think it was the only Bond movie I had not seen. I knew a different actor from Connery and Moore had played this Bond back in the 70’s, and after watching this movie now I know why he only got one shot at it. Looking at the movie as a whole, it was a muddled affair with two many slow parts, too much talking in low voices that you could barely hear, and a Bond (played by George Lazenby) that was more of a teenage dork than a gentlemanly and suave 007. I think what really ruined any chance of me liking this Bond was in a scene where Bond sneaks into some guy’s office to steal some papers. The papers are in a safe so Bond starts working on cracking the safe. But instead of doing it himself he has some machine doing it, while he sits down and flips through a Playboy magazine! Really? Bond, who gets more beautiful women than he can shake a stick at needs to look at a girly magazine? And like a complete dork he actually puts the centerfold in his jacket as he exits the office.
Then there is the random love interest who he marries at the end. The movie starts with her driving past him very fast. Then he catches up to her parked car, and she is walking down a beach and into the water (presumably to commit suicide?). So Bond runs to rescue her, but these tough guys show up and he has to fight them with some of the worst, sped-up fight scenes you can imagine. Meanwhile, the woman recovers and drives off. Of course Bond is hounded by these tough guys who take him to the woman’s father who wants Bond to be with her. She starts out all disinterested, then suddenly loves him. Whatever.
Then there’s Telly Savalas, a great actor in my opinion. He has also played good villains. This time he is not at all scary. The worst scene is where he has kidnapped Bond’s woman and is coming on to her. He unzips his jogging suit top and looks pretty big and not at all attractive. At least he has a scary fraulein to watch his back!
There are so many long and boring scenes in the movie, I think it took me 3 or 4 times to finish watching it. I thought it just had to get better. But even the chase scenes were too long, and I think the whole movie was well over 2 hours.
This review is getting pretty long, but to wrap it up I only finished this movie because it was Bond. I was very disappointed. I thought there were other Bond movies that were bad (For Your Eyes Only, License To Kill) and other bad Bonds (Timothy Dalton) but this is the worst by far. Take my word for it, if you like Bond and haven’t seen this one, skip it. You aren’t missing anything.