Octopussy‘s hot air balloon raid into Kamal Khan’s fortress stands as one of the most bizarre and uninspired action sequences of any Bond movie. Starring elephants, generically tame fistfights, swords and a weird man that yells and breaks down the front door, it’s main highlight is Bond and Q’s bizarre decision to infiltrate using a hot air balloon. Not only do I find it an odd choice, it’s just not practical or fast, especially given that a raid is normally done with an element of surprise and not with a Union Jack plastered on the side of a gigantic hot air balloon.
Why didn’t somebody just shoot the balloon?