<P> The Sunday Mirror critic observed that The Man with the Golden Gun "isn't the best Bond ever" but found it "remarkable that Messrs. Saltzman and Broccoli can still produce such slick and inventive entertainment". Arthur Thirkwell, writing in the Sunday Mirror's sister paper, the Daily Mirror concentrated more on lead actor Roger Moore than the film itself: "What Sean Connery used to achieve with a touch of sardonic sadism, Roger Moore conveys with roguish schoolboy charm and the odd, dry quip ." Thirkwell also said that Moore "manages to make even this reduced - voltage Bond a character with plenty of sparkle ." Judith Crist of New York Magazine gave a positive review, saying "the scenery's grand, the lines nice and the gadgetry entertaining", also describing the production as a film that "capture (s) the free - wheeling, whooshing non-sense of early Fleming's fairy tale for grown - ups orientation". </P> <P> Jay Cocks, writing in Time, focused on gadgets such as Scaramanga's flying car, as what is wrong with both The Man with the Golden Gun and the more recent films in the Bond series, calling them "Overtricky, uninspired, these exercises show the strain of stretching fantasy well past wit ." Cocks also criticised the actors, saying that Moore "lacks all Connery's strengths and has several deep deficiencies", while Lee was "an unusually unimpressive villain". </P> <P> Opinion on The Man with the Golden Gun has for the most part remained the same as it was in 1974 and as of November 2015, the film holds a 45% rating from Rotten Tomatoes (although these contain contemporary reviews), while Ian Freer of Empire found the film "an entertaining 007 adventure, something that tonally, if not qualitatively, could happily sit within the Connery era ." IGN chose The Man with the Golden Gun as the worst Bond film, claiming it "has a great concept...but the execution is sloppy and silly", and Entertainment Weekly chose it as the fourth worst, saying that the "plot is almost as puny as the sidekick". On the other hand, Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the tenth best, with much praise for Christopher Lee's performance . </P> <P> Some critics saw the film as uninspired, tired and boring . Roger Moore was also criticised for playing Bond against type, in a style more reminiscent of Sean Connery, although Lee's performance received acclaim . Danny Peary wrote that The Man with the Golden Gun "lacks invention...is one of the least interesting Bond films" and "a very laboured movie, with Bond a stiff bore, Adams and Britt Ekland uninspired leading ladies". Peary believes that the shootout between Bond and Scaramanga in the funhouse "is the one good scene in the movie, and even it has an unsatisfying finish" and also bemoaned the presence of Clifton James, "unfortunately reprising his unfunny redneck sheriff from Live and Let Die ." </P>

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