Roger Moore - The Spy Who Loved Me
Though his portrayal remains iconic to this day, Roger Moore was probably the weakest Bond after Lazenby, having played the role far too light-heartedly and for far too long (he was 57 when A View To A Kill was filmed). Admittedly, his camp take on the character was a product of the times, but in retrospect it did result in no fewer than five films which sit firmly in the lower-end of any ranking of the Bond series - Live And Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy and A View To A Kill. Some of these certainly had their moments, but were ultimately ruined by silly things. This leaves The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only, both of which were serious plot-driven affairs. For Your Eyes Only brought Bond back to earth (literally, following the ridiculous outer space escapades that preceded it in Moonraker), pitting him against Greek KGB agent Kristatos (Julian Glover) in the pursuit of a device from a sunken British ship. With some stunning underwater sequences, a strong secondary plot that sees Bond girl Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) attempt to avenge her fallen parents and a scene-stealing accomplice in the form of Kristatos' rival smuggler Colombo (Topol), it is a serious contender for the crown of Moore's best Bond film. It is let down, however, by the presence of both a teenage character that attempts to seduce Bond (he refuses her, but it still feels very awkward to watch) and a pastiche of Margaret Thatcher, who is bizarrely shoehorned into the film's conclusion and has a conversation over the phone with a talking parrot... This leaves The Spy Who Loved Me, which sets Bond against Karl Stromberg (Curd Jurgens), an industrialist who captures three nuclear submarines, one each belonging to the British, the Russians and the Americans. Using their payloads to engineer a global war, he seeks to create a new civilisation under the sea. On paper, the premise sounds ridiculous, but as Bond forms a love/hate relationship with KGB agent Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach), the story becomes a very captivating one, incorporating some great sequences including a Sardinian car chase that eventually goes underwater (in the iconic Lotus Espirit car that turns into a submarine), a downhill ski chase that sees Bond escape from an ambush, numerous encounters with the frightening metal-toothed Jaws (Richard Kiel) and the desperate firefight aboard Stromberg's vessel as Bond teams with American, British and Russian sailors to thwart nuclear war. Ultimately, though Roger Moore may always be perceived as something of a weak link in the Bond chain, there is a diamond in the rough that is his filmography in the form of The Spy Who Loved Me. None of his other efforts were Die Another Day levels of terrible, and were in fact mostly received fondly by audiences initially, but his third effort is the one that has truly stood the test of time.