Flick Pick: Octopussy

Octopussy
(MGM/UA, 1983)

Thirteen is rarely considered a lucky number, but this film mostly defies the superstition. No small amount of controversy was over the use of one of Ian Fleming's 20-year old short story titles (and little else from it) as the film title, despite the obvious double entendre. Roger Moore returned for his sixth go at the character, and Maud Adams performed the unprecedented feat of being a two-time Bond girl by returning for the title role eight years after appearing in The Man With the Golden Gun. The movie features minimal gadgetry and maximal plot derring-do, including an opening stunt with both where Bond flies a mini-jet through a hangar, in a time when CG to pull it off didn't exist. Louis Jourdan provides a suave criminal villain, even if not quite up to the standards of a Dr. No or a Goldfinger, and Moore still up for the action, as well as the usual tongue-in-cheek comedy that is his forte in the role, including in a gorilla suit, doing a Tarzan yell, and dressing as a clown while defusing a nuclear bomb.