Release and Reception
Octopussy's premiere took place at the Odeon Leicester Square on 6 June 1983 in the company of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. Within five months of its premiere, it was released in 16 countries worldwide. The film earned slightly less than For Your Eyes Only, but still grossed $187,500,000, with $67.8 million in the United States alone. It also performed slightly better than Never Say Never Again, the non-Eon Bond remake of Thunderball which came out a few months later.
The film has received mixed reviews. Some reviewers disliked Bond's clown costume, gorilla outfit, and Tarzan yell during a jungle chase. One review claimed that it was long and confusing. By contrast, Louis Jourdan's "suave" performance, the elegance of the film locations in India, and the stunts on aircraft and the train were appreciated. Jeffrey Westhoff at Rotten Tomatoes praised Roger Moore as being "sterling". Neal Gabler and Jeffrey Lyons at the TV-show Sneak Previews praised the film and said "Octopussy delivers" and "The nice thing about Octopussy is that it's going back-to-basics, less gadgets, more hand-to-hand combat. It's more of an adventure movie in a more traditional sense and I like it for that". Danny Peary wrote that Octopussy "has slow spots, little humour, and villains who aren’t nearly of the calibre of Dr. No, Goldfinger, or Blofeld. Also, the filmmakers make the mistake of demeaning Bond by having him swing through the trees and emitting a Tarzan cry and having him hide in a gorilla suit and later disguise himself as a clown (whom all the kids at the circus laugh at). It’s as if they’re trying to remind us that everything is tongue-in-cheek, but that makes little sense, for the film is much more serious than typical Bond outings – in fact, it recalls the tone of From Russia with Love." Entertainment Weekly chose Octopussy as the third worst Bond film, while Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the eighth worst, and IGN chose it as the seventh worst. The review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 43% rating.
Octopussy was nominated for an Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Award, with Maud Adams nominated for the Saturn Award in the Best Fantasy Supporting Actress category. Chris Nashawaty also ranks her as the best Bond girl of the Roger Moore James Bond films. The film won the Golden Screen Award in Germany and the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing.
Read more about this topic: List Of James Bond Allies In Octopussy
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“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
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