The Spy Who Loved Me (film) big budget was not wasted. Interestingly, while the sets and gimmicks were the most spectacular to date, Bond and the other characters are toned down (there's a minimum of slapstick humour) so that they are more realistic than in other Roger Moore films. Moore gives his best performance in the series ... [Bond and Anya Amasova] are an appealing couple, equal in every way. Film is a real treat – a well acted, smartly cast, sexy, visually impressive, lavishly produced, powerfully directed mix of a spy romance and a war-mission film." Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" considered the
James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me since "Colonel Sun" nearly a decade earlier. Christopher Wood, himself a novelist, and who co-authored the screenplay with Richard Maibaum, was commissioned to write the book, which was given the title "James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me". Wood would also novelize the screenplay for the next Bond film, "Moonraker" in 1979. The novelization and the screenplay, although both written by Wood, are somewhat different. In the novelization SMERSH has been reactivated some time before the start of the novel, and is still after James Bond. Their part in the novelization begins during the "pre-title credits" sequence, in which Bond