Few remember Roger Moore's second James Bond outing with much enthusiasm, and then only for Christopher Lee's nicely underplayed eponymous baddie, a model for the rule less can be more.
He steals the film's two best scenes with nicely calculated understatement - the killing of the evil Bangkok industrialist Hai Fat ('He always did like that mausoleum... Put him in it.') and his first encounter with Moore in the kick-boxing stadium with the dead Maud Adams between them.
The scene in the kung-fu school isn't too bad, although by now the Bond films were following trends not setting them.
It was all starting to look tired by 1974; the flying car, the bland and uninteresting solar complex set (designed by Peter Murton), and John Barry delivers his least sympathetic score, as if for a different film. Editing of the action is also a long way from the bravura cutting of Peter Hunt. Even the key stunt, the spiraling car jump, is cheapened by a badly misjudged sound effect. The product-placement is also increasingly blatant.
The narrative relies increasingly on farce - a bikini-clad Ekland accidentally activating the solar-energy complex when her bottom nudges the control panel, while Sheriff JW Pepper, the red-neck Louisiana lawman from the previous film, kills any pretence of credibility.
The mawkish scene where Moore and Ekland discuss the dangers of their profession over dinner is cringing. Worst of all, Moore's second stab at the part makes Bond an insufferable cigar-in-mouth boor, with none of the warmth or humour he brought to his television roles.
Flaccid direction from Guy Hamilton didn't help either.
He steals the film's two best scenes with nicely calculated understatement - the killing of the evil Bangkok industrialist Hai Fat ('He always did like that mausoleum... Put him in it.') and his first encounter with Moore in the kick-boxing stadium with the dead Maud Adams between them.
The scene in the kung-fu school isn't too bad, although by now the Bond films were following trends not setting them.
It was all starting to look tired by 1974; the flying car, the bland and uninteresting solar complex set (designed by Peter Murton), and John Barry delivers his least sympathetic score, as if for a different film. Editing of the action is also a long way from the bravura cutting of Peter Hunt. Even the key stunt, the spiraling car jump, is cheapened by a badly misjudged sound effect. The product-placement is also increasingly blatant.
The narrative relies increasingly on farce - a bikini-clad Ekland accidentally activating the solar-energy complex when her bottom nudges the control panel, while Sheriff JW Pepper, the red-neck Louisiana lawman from the previous film, kills any pretence of credibility.
The mawkish scene where Moore and Ekland discuss the dangers of their profession over dinner is cringing. Worst of all, Moore's second stab at the part makes Bond an insufferable cigar-in-mouth boor, with none of the warmth or humour he brought to his television roles.
Flaccid direction from Guy Hamilton didn't help either.