The Spy Who Loved Me

When you think of the classic Bond formula, there are three instalments that jump to mind.

weeee

Goldfinger had the best combo of villain and henchman, the most famous car, and a particularly inventive scheme. You Only Live Twice had the best sets and setpieces and the best Blofeld. The Spy Who Loved Me has the best Bond girl, and the biggest guy for you.

This is the only smile I want to protect.

As Goldfinger and Classic Blofeld are the Platonic form of the Bond villain, so Major Anya Amasova, Agent Triple X (lol), is the Platonic form of the Bond girl: her codename is an allusion to secks, she is a Russian spy (despite her accent), has an adversarial relationship with Bond but ultimately falls for the Big British Cocc, and has her cleavage on display for almost the entire movie.

>tfw no cleavagey russian agent gf with enormous fuck-me eyes 24/7

She even pimp slaps some guy for knocking off her hat.

"Yo bitch you did NOT just knock my good hat" - KGB Agent Triple X

Bond and Anya first compete, and then team up, to recover a microfilm that leads them to the secret of who has been hijacking submarines in an aquatic rehash of the plot of You Only Live Twice. It's Karl Stromberg, the most based Bond villain in the entire series, whose plan is to exterminate all life on land so he can rule the world from the oceans, which is now also my plan.

>tfw no comfy aquarium lair

Unfortunately Karl doesn't get much screentime (he was a last minute substitution for Blofeld), but he gives a cool speech about his underwater world, has webbed fingers, and captures Major Anya at the end presumably because he realises belatedly that he will need at least one woman with whom to repopulate the planet with his Innsmouth progeny.

IDK what this big bony looking thing on the right is but it kind of looks like a giant foot which raises way too many questions.

No matter, because this is also the one with Jaws, the invincible henchman who is a tough tie with Oddjob for the henchman crown. Every scene with Jaws is great and the movie gives him the rare distinction of surviving, something only Blofeld and Knick Knack got to do in previous films, though it looks like it will be a long swim to shore.

Jaws mauls a shark to death to escape. Given that this came out two years after Spielberg's Jaws, this seems like an hilarious middle finger to Spielberg for no discernible reason.

Another highlight is the big sub pen battle which seems like an intentional update of the volcano base battle from YOLT, and which I might even prefer slightly for action, since it seems a bit more chaotic and tense. The villains get a surprisingly high number of kills so for a moment there it actually looks like it could go either way. This is followed by a rare moment of actual suspense in which Bond has to defuse a nuke or something. Then he gets Karl's submarines to nuke each other.

>tfw no giant submarine pen to blow up

The question of whether this, Goldfinger or YOLT is the greatest and best Bondkino will likely never be resolved, as they each have certain strengths that the others lack. The Spy Who Loved Me has the edge in main Bond girl, henchman and car that turns into a submarine, but lacks some of the dreaminess and the kino music of the others, and has a slightly weaker (though still kino) mastermind. Regardless, the takeaway is that the best films aren't the ones that try to break away from the formula, but which play it with the most conviction and bravado.