Live and Let Die

Bond is back in number eight, and Moore is playing him for the first time. Everything is different, except that the cars are American again, the dames are American again, and the action is kind of lame again. But—hey—the bad guys are black this time! I mock Felix Leiter and Whisper and condemn Rosie Carver and writer Tom Mankiewicz. I analyze Mr. Big's ruthlessly over-efficient gang machine. I mock Paul McCartney's grammar (but fail to mention how Bond dissed the Beatles in Goldfinger). I compare the film to the earlier entries, to the book, to blaxploitation movies, and to Smokey and the Bandit. I praise Seymour, Kotto, and Moore, but mostly I complain that this just isn't one of the better entries. I take a break from obsessively identifying cars to obsessively differentiating between crocodiles and alligators.