A nice return to form for the series, after wading in cheese up to their knees with the preceding Live and Let Die. It won't be giving From Russia With Love or Goldfinger a run for their money, but as the back-to-basics reality check that the series so desperately needed, this is more than acceptable. Roger Moore confidently plays a tougher, more businesslike Bond this time around, and spends most of the production flexing his detective chops in search of a rival assassin with nothing more to go on than the color of his weapon and a quick, curious nipple count. Stocked with fresh, exotic locales, skimpy beauties dressed for the beach, an adequate number of wacky, themed sidekicks (as in, less than the full dozen of the former picture) and a cool, legitimate master threat, this is pretty much the root formula for a good adventure with 007. Occasionally it gives in to a passion for pointless boat chases, and a few bad remnants of the era rear their head at inopportune moments (what was with the slide whistle during that massive car jump?) but such silly bits of self-indulgence are a part of the franchise's heritage at this point. Excellent work by Christopher Lee as the quirky titular killer nudges this into the top half of Bond's catalog.