The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Spy films are thrillers and action films that deal with international espionage. Common story elements centre around the efforts to obtain information from the enemy, to prevent plots to attack domestic territory or world-domination schemes and assorted manoeuvrings around.
The spy film as we know it emerged on screen with the first James Bond film Dr No (1962) adapted from the popular books by Ian Fleming. The Bond films introduced the tropes of the genre – the suave womanising super-spy; the super-villain with the world domination plot and his near-invincible henchmen; and the gadgetry and weapons employed by the villain, which frequently took the works into the realm of science-fiction. The Bond films became a long-running series passing through different actors and continuing to the present day. There was also a large body of imitators during the 1960s that rarely took themselves seriously and attained a psychedelic absurdity.
From the late 1960s, the spy film has made a move back towards a greater realism. The late 1990s/2000s brought the spy parody in the form of the Austin Powers films, spoofing the look and tropes of the James Bond films and these too led to a number of imitators. The variant that is discussed here that features assorted science-fictional elements has been nicknamed ‘spy-fi’.
For more detail and an overview of the genre see the Theme Essay Spy Films.
The eleventh James Bond film and one that sees that series trying to compete with the success of Star Wars and taking Roger Moore into orbit. One of the most spectacular productions of the series, it is also killed by a cartoonish unserious tone
Ninth and weakest of the James Bond films. Ian Fleming created a great nemesis in the assassin Scaramanga and the film casts it with Christopher Lee – only to fail to write the role interesting enough for Lee to fill
A flop theatrical film spinoff from the Get Smart tv series with Don Adams’ Maxwell Smart trying to stop a bomb that renders people naked
Spy movie parody with Rowan Atkinson as an inept agent who is constantly tripping over his own feet. It is Austin Powers reconceived as a Mr Bean film but offering little that is funny.
Fourth in a series of energetic Hong Kong slapstick action capers. The film has no pretence to anything more than providing a new action sequence every five minutes, although by now the level is juvenile
The first and probably the least worst in a series of James Bond copycat films starring Dean Martin as agent Matt Helm. Martin plays the part as a tipsy lounge lizard and the film comes stuffed with excruciating double entendres
Very silly AIP comedy that parodies the massively popular James Bond films of the era, as well as features Vincent Price as the villain spoofing his appearances in the studio’s Edgar Allan Poe films
The seventh James Bond film where Sean Connery was inveigled back to the role with a heft salary increase. However, the result is the worst of all the Connery Bonds with an incoherent plot and uneven action scenes
Perhaps the lamest spy movie idea EVER – a children’s film about a spy who goes into action accompanied by a chimpanzee
Styled in the same movie parody style vein as Airplane, this digs into the spy movie, although in actuality it is more of a scattershot spoof of films of then-recent vintage. Leslie Nielsen found regular employ in these types of film
A TV movie that was released theatrically outside the US with Dale Robinette as a James Bond copycat with Dale Robinette up against villain Patrick MacNee who has weaponised the ozone layer
Unfunny John Landis film with Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd as two bumbling CIA agents. This aspires to being one of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road films but only arrives at inane slapstick
Italian-made sequel to the campy Vincent Price starring Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine. Directed by the usually great Mario Bava and overrun by the buffoonish clowning of Italian comics Franco and Ciccio
A film of legendarily bad proportions where a group of Country and Western singers end up in a haunted house. Despite casting some famous horror actors, this is more interested in its excruciating country performances
This was the eighth of the Carry On films. The popular British comedy series turn their bawdy sights to conducting a spoof the James Bond film during the height of the spy movie fad
The Avengers was the height of 1960s chic. Amid the 90s/00s fad for big screen remakes of tv shows, this was a miscalculated disaster that gets everything about the original wrong from the casting to the droll humour
A legendarily awful spy movie where assorted characters run around a ranch in ethnic disguise trying to stop a Russian who is unleashing a rabbit that contains a deadly virus
An excruciating copy of the James Bond films, the second of the Matt Helm films starring Dean Martin as a drunken lounge lizard spy
One of the most brainless action films ever made. This has the laughable notion of trying to make a James Bond film but recasting it with Vin Diesel as an extreme sports junkie. Everything about the film is absurd.
Modesty Blaise was a classic British comic-book about a smart female thief. On screen, it is turned into a copy of the James Bond films that goes for excruciatingly over-the-top camp excess
Painfully unfunny big screen revival of the 1960s spy tv series. This has been reduced to a series of plotless gags that involve Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson doing nothing except bickering with each other