Live and Let Die Ultimate Edition (1973)

ReelViews 6 of 10
Following six James Bond movies with Sean Connery (and one with the dead-on-arrival George Lazenby), it was difficult -- to say the least -- for fans to accept the transition to wisecracking Roger Moore when he debuted in 1973. It didn't help that his introductory film was one of the worst Bonds of all time (ranking alongside Moore's Octopussy and Timothy Dalton's The Living Daylights). Worse still, the only thing about Live and Let Die to weather the test of time is its title song (written by Paul & Linda McCartney, and performed by Wings)...As is often the case with Bond movies, this one runs too long. There is a speedboat chase that, aside from being executed in a pedestrian fashion, goes on forever. It's not exciting, and the introduction of comic asides with Sheriff J. W. Pepper (Clifton James) are wildly out-of-place...Live and Let Die has the requisite action scenes and several enticing women for Bond to woo (including a CIA agent played by Gloria Hendry and Jane Seymour in her first screen appearance), but, in addition to missing Connery's presence, the movie lacks the usual tension and energy. Watching Live and Let Die isn't a complete waste of time, but there's no overriding reason why anyone should go out of their way to see it unless they're a die-hard Bond fan or are curious about Roger Moore's first turn in the role. - James Berardinelli
 
Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
"Live and Let Die" is the ninth James Bond picture, and not exactly the best. It has all the necessary girls, gimmicks, subterranean control rooms, uniformed goons and magic wristwatches it can hold, but it doesn't have the wit and it doesn't have the style of the best Bond movies...This may have something to do with the substitution of Roger Moore for Sean Connery as 007. Moore has the superficial attributes for the job: The urbanity, the quizzically raised eyebrow, the calm under fire and in bed. But Connery was always able to invest the role with a certain humor, a sense of its ridiculousness. Moore has been supplied with a lot of double entendres and double takes, but he doesn't seem to get the joke...There are a few elements every Bond movie absolutely must have, and "Live and Let Die" has them. It opens, of course, with a meeting with M and the faithful Miss Moneypenny. It has Bond arriving at the Caribbean hideout by man-bearing kite. It has a spectacular chase (this one involves speedboats, but isn't as much fun as the great ski chase two Bonds ago). It has a spectacularly destroyed villain (he swallows a capsule of compressed air and explodes). It has the girls. And it has Bond exhibiting his mastery of the better things in life by asking room service for a bottle of Bollinger - not cold, but "slightly chilled," please...And it does, to give it credit, have the one basic Bond scene that always seems copied from the previous Bond movie: The penetration of the underground citadel. - Roger Ebert