Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Brit Elkand, Maud Adams, Herve Villechaize, Son-Tek Oh, Bernard Lee, directed by Guy Hamilton, adapted from Ian Flemming
For example, the theme song, is so catchy, I still can't get it out of my head two days after seeing it. However, I don't think it's sung well and if you catch the words, they have so little artistry to them, they sound like a second grade book report. "He has a powerful weapon, he charges a million a shot, if you want to get rid of someone, he's the man with the golden gun." Granted, the lyrics of the movie theme aren't exactly the high point of the James Bond series, but a lot of the movie feels like this.
The villain is Fransisco Scaramanga (Lee), a world-renowned assasin who charages a million dollars a kill and whom has apparently been hired to kill Bond. When MI6 hears this, M (Bond's boss) decides to temporarily relieve Bond of duty as he's too much of a liability because they're in the middle of some important case, the "solar energy problem", but with a wink, he tells Bond that if Scaramanga were to be eliminated, then he gets to have his job back.
This is the first installment, chronologically, without a large terrorist organization with an endless supply of henchmen, but instead, a skilled assasin exactly like Bond. I thought this had the potential to be very interesting, but somehow, that potential went unmet. It might have been the half-baked scheme or the feeling that the two big twists in the story didn't pack as much punch as they should have. In one of the twists, Scaramanga takes over as head of this big company after his superior "resigns," but the guy had so little screentime that it was hard to get worked up over. They should have either allowed Hai Fatt the opportunity to add more to the plot or should have cut him out so he wouldn't clutter up Scaramanga's development.
As for Christopher Lee, I think he did what he could with the part given to him. I do have to add that I often have a wierd tendency to become a fan of the villain and feel sad when he, as opposed to Bond, dies in the end and I think this was the only time where I felt like the villain had a fitting death. Scaramanga, saw being an assassin as a sport, and being more passionate about that than anything else, he wanted to see if he was the best at his sport, which is why he wanted to face Bond in a fair fight and see what he was made of. Usually, I get annoyed when the villain inexplicably forgets about his evil scheme for a few minutes to show Bond his lair and let him escape.
Speaking of villain's lairs, that's another area where this film is lacking. In movies like "You Only Live Twice" or "Moonraker" the lairs are pretty extraodinary, but here most of the action took place in a funhouse, slightly classier than ones you would find at your local Halloween fair. Hai Fatt's secluded palace or the cool solar energy station would have been much better choices.
On the plus side, the action scenes are pretty good. There's a car chasing scene which is both spectacular and hillarious, due to the fact that Bond steals a car in such a hurry that he doesn't have time to kick the passenger out. The story, while slightly subpar by Bond standards, is still pretty good and all the familiar characters, M, Q, and Moneypenny have some good lines.
Bond's ally (Oh), who alternates between carpooling his nieces and serving as Bond's getaway vehicle, added a lot, and I was especially happy that as an MI6 Agent who's not James Bond, he goes the entire film without being killed. The film also has, in my opinion, one of the best and most attractive Bond girls in the series in Mary Goodnight. Brit Elkand couldn't really get down a Brritish accent, but Goodnight had a lot of character. She would mess up on most of the tasks she was assigned, yet she'd be proud of herself anyway and it is because she welcomed his advances in the bedroom, yet tried to act strong-willed and resistant anyway, that she and Bond had such great interplay.