Not nearly as titilating as its title makes it sound, Octopussy is an uninteresting shambles of a film. John Glen brings the same “hard edge” he did to For Your Eyes Only but doesn’t skimp on the awful puns or camp that served as bookmarks of his 007 debut. In addition, Octopussy is bloated, unwieldy and, worst of all, boring.

I know what you’re thinking: how can a movie with crazy carnies and high stakes espionage revolving around a hidden nuke be anything but edge-of-your-seat entertainment? Pretty easily, actually.

As soon as 007 gets abducted, Octopussy loses its focus. He tries to escape for some inane reason and the ensuing chase through the jungles of India are among the most embarassing moments of the entire franchise. Let’s just say James Bond is emphatically not Tarzan.

Perhaps if Octopussy had a central villain instead of a random Russian general who appears for five minutes towards the end and a British dude pretending to be an Indian I would care about a nuclear bomb going off in a circus. They’re both so underdeveloped and lacking in personality though that attempting to get into Octopussy is an excercise in frustration.

True, there’s a handful of incredible stunts i.e. the ones that involve Bond battling henchmen on top of fast moving objects (trains, planes etc.) but by the time 007 drives through half of Europe to defuse the bomb (with time to disguise himself in full clown apparel no less), I’d totally given up on Octopussy.