A View To A Kill in Review

Roger’s last bow can’t come soon enough - he was closing in on sixty by the time this one rolled around – so it’s lucky for him he looks very much at home in the members’ paddock of Royal Ascot.

After some endless tangential guff about technologically augmented racehorses we’re off to Paris for a round of Eiffel Tower-based high-jinks and eventually to San Francisco were psychotic boffin Max Zorin is scheming to blow up Silicon Valley and corner the world market in microchips.

An admittedly exciting opening salvo set in the Siberian snow is ruined by the frivolous decision to include a snippet of ‘California Girls’ and, Duran Duran’s awesome theme song aside, it’s pretty much downhill from there. The action is limited, the locations hackneyed and Moore is far too advanced in years to be in any way believable when dangling from the Golden Gate bridge. It’s a good job the baddies are up to snuff: Grace Jones makes for a memorably exotic henchperson after a run of faceless goons. And, taking up a role that was initially offered to David Bowie and then Sting (!), Oscar-winning oddball Christopher Walken chews up the scenery as Nazi poster boy Zorin, perhaps the zaniest nemesis 007 has ever faced.

No matter what I always now laugh at Moore's reaction to May Day taking off her robe. The context of Grace Jones wearing a strap on dildo makes the whole thing 200% more amusing.

Makeshift Python wrote:

No matter what I always now laugh at Moore's reaction to May Day taking off her robe. The context of Grace Jones wearing a strap on dildo makes the whole thing 200% more amusing.

It was always a brilliantly bizarre scene to begin with IMO, I'll make a point of remembering to picture strap-on-MayDay next time I watch it, I can imagine it being hilarious. Moore is great in that scene.

I'm surprised YouTube doesn't have it up. You think one Bond fan would at least upload that clip.

Anyway, I still don't quite dig the flick. Most of it has to do with the bad humor and Tanya Roberts that kinda spoils what might have been at least a decent entry. And a different director. I don't have much of a gripe with Moore's age. In 1985 Bond didn't become an ageless character, we saw him grow up from a man in his early 30s to a man in his late 50s. Still I think a new Bond would have been preferable starting with FYEO such as Dalton, nothing to do with age but rather the timing and the change of tone for the 80s. Oh and the father/daughter dynamic should have been kept. Moore already fucked three other ladies in the film, couldn't they have just tried sticking with the idea of a main Bond girl not being a conquest? Another case of being too attached to the formula. That's why I dig the way the relationship was handled in QOS, obviously a different dynamic (in this case kindred spirits). However if a younger actor was involved then the father/daughter thing probably could have been scrapped altogether.

Walken and Grace Jones are the best aspects of the whole flick. Though I think Walken could have better material to work with he still has a certain x factor that makes him appealing to watch.

So yeah. Just needed a better director, less dumb humor, better actress, and I think then we would have gotten at least a real solid 80s era adventure.

Makeshift Python wrote:

We need a convert Bond scenes to MS Paint thread ASAP.

Rog's elegiac Bond swansong from good old '85.

A belter of a score from John Barry, great distinctive villains in Zorin and MayDay, the hotness of Tanya Roberts, the "you love it really" California Girls moment, the classy Chateaux Chantilly, the hilarious and brilliant MayDay seduction, the amazing Eiffel Tower and car-onto-a-bus stunts, a smashing Golden Gate Bridge finale and an utterly killer title song.... Overall, it may well recall Goldfinger at times, but it's Goldfinger done better.

Disagree? Review it yourself here.....

A View to a Kill (1985) - 5/10
Bless Sir Roger Moore for playing James Bond seven times over 12 years. But my God was he old looking in A View to a Kill. This was also the case (to slightly lesser extent) in For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy, but because those films were interesting enough (more or less) to pull your attention away from Moore’s age, and they get some slack. But there is nothing interesting in A View to a Kill. The movie itself seems as tired as Roger Moore probably did while filming. It feels so processed and manufactured, almost as if it were made by a machine. The cinematography looks bland, and the action is either super lame (the fire truck chase, the paris car chase) or fake looking (all of the fist fights). It doesn’t help that the stunt doubles are incredibly obvious, either. Moore is also twenty years too old for his leading lady, played by a very unconvincing Tanya Roberts. And that love scene between Bond and May Day still gives me shudders just writing about it. The two things that save A View to a Kill from the scrap heap is Christopher Walken, who plays a pretty good villain and makes the the scenes he’s in more bearable and John Barry’s excellent score. Apart from that, this film is lifeless, overtly silly and wholly unmemorable. Oh, and let’s not forget about that lame beach boys gag, too. (Sigh.)

First two thirds of this film are the most unremarkable, boring Bond ever committed to film. However, from the moment of the shotgun fight in Stacy's house onward, AVTAK picks up a great deal of steam and finishes strongly. It's not enough to redeem the film, but does make it worth watching.

As an aside, AVTAK is just about as violent and gruesome as LTK and SP. Zorin's murder of Howe, the KGB agent being tossed head first into the turbine, and, of course, Zorin and Scarpine machine gunning the Main Strike workers. A bit on the grisly side, that.

As another side, I really like the cut of Stacy's gib...so to speak. She may actually be the most realistic and down-to-earth Bond girl of them all. A well-written character, and Tanya Roberts gives it her best.

I don't disagree, though I certainly don't dislike the film as much I used to when I defaulted to the "Moore's too old!" criticism.

Much of it is very by-the-numbers as you allude to.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Bloody hell. B&B used to be wild.  

Perilagu Khan wrote:

As an aside, AVTAK is just about as violent and gruesome as LTK and SP. Zorin's murder of Howe, the KGB agent being tossed head first into the turbine, and, of course, Zorin and Scarpine machine gunning the Main Strike workers. A bit on the grisly side, that.

Moore wasn't keen on this ... he said he was 'horrified' by the violence in View, also saying that the focus hadn't previously been on the 'Sam Peckinpah' side of things ... 'the violence was all ... mechanical'.

Personally I reckon LTK shades it with the likes of Krest's exploding head, diced-by-coke-grinder Dario and flame-grilled Sanchez.

CJB wrote:

I don't disagree, though I certainly don't dislike the film as much I used to when I defaulted to the "Moore's too old!" criticism.

Much of it is very by-the-numbers as you allude to.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Bloody hell. B&B used to be wild.  

True. But our spelling has improved. Throddle...

CJB wrote:

Makeshift Python wrote:

Bloody hell. B&B used to be wild.  

Wasn't there a bunch of that artist's excellent work floating around back in the day? I recall specifically one of Connery ripping off Marie's bikini top?

Makeshift Python wrote:

I thought that Christartos had come out of retirement for a minute there!

Somerset wrote:

Wasn't there a bunch of that artist's excellent work floating around back in the day? I recall specifically one of Connery ripping off Marie's bikini top?

Yes! I remember that one.

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