Review of Octopussy: Special Edition (James Bond)

Introduction

MGM’s monthly releases of James Bond films brought us the last two Roger Moore movies last month – “Octopussy” and “A View To A Kill” – neither of which I have seen in its entirety.

“Octopussy” was made in 1983 and features Bond on the trail of international jewel thieves who killed Agent 009. The plot first takes Bond to India where he battles against villain Kamal (played by Louis Jourdan) and Maude Adams makes her second appearance in a Bond movie, this time as Octopussy. Bond then follows her circus to Europe where he also meets up with a corrupt Russian General. Typical Bond then...

Video

Video comes in the wider than usual 2.45:1 ratio, anamorphically enhanced. As with all the other films in the series, the picture is of high quality and shows no signs of dirt, grain or compression problems.

Visually, as with all Bond films, spectacular locations and crazy stunts are the mainstay of the visuals and “Octopussy” is no exception. “Octopussy” features numerous locations in India and East/West Germany. The crazy stunts include some aerial lunacy with a fight on top of a plane and a long sequence set on a train (which is even more remarkable having watched the making-of and seen the difficulties encountered).

Bond wouldn’t be bond without some appalling rear projection – and there’s plenty of it here. Some scenes were Bond is driving are dubious, but the worst is reserved for the train sequence which at times looks great, but then the view changes and it looks awful.

Audio

The sound is the source of my first major complaint about “Octopussy”. There’s not anything wrong with the sound, its just that it’s not a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix – particularly irritating as earlier films in the series have had their sound remixed. This is made even more annoying by the numerous scenes in the film that would really benefit from a 5.1 remix – including the opening sequence with the jet flying overhead etc.

The Dolby Pro-Logic mix is adequate and the dialogue is clear throughout, but the soundstage lacks the sparkle provided by a full-range stereo rear channel.

Features

As with the other releases in the series, MGM have provided a good range of extras.

With “Octopussy” these extras centre around two documentaries – “Inside Octopussy” and “Designing Bond – Peter Lamont”. The “Inside Octopussy” documentary is not quite as good as the others in the series at first, as it contains more interviews and less on-site footage, but is still interesting. The “Designing Bond – Peter Lamont” documentary takes a look at the work of Peter Lamont on numerous Bond Films and is very interesting. In many ways these two documentaries are more interesting than the movie!

Other features include a commentary with director John Glen, animated storyboards, music video and trailers.

Conclusion

Overall “Octopussy” is one of the weakest Bond films. Whilst “For Your Eyes Only” dropped some of the silliness, it returns here with some patronising scenes in India and some out of place humour – the Tarzan rope-swing is particularly cheesy.

The cast is pretty good, but I thought that Steven Berkoff was over-the-top at times with his portrayal of Orlov

Visually the film is good, and the sound is also good, but the lack of a Dolby Digital 5.1 remix is a real annoyance. There’s also a good range of quality extra material, along with an informative booklet.

It’s not one of the best, but as most DVD owners, like myself, are buying the whole collection, they’re unlikely to let that put them off.