A View to a Kill
A View to a Kill
Director: John Glen
Producers: Albert R. Broccoli, Tom Pevsner (associate) and Michael G. Wilson
Writers: Ian Fleming (story); Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson
Title Song: Lyrics by Duran Duran and Sung by Duran Duran
Opening Action Sequence: Bond recovers a tiny microchip off of the body of a dead British agent while exploring Siberia. Before long, he is noticed by a group of armed killers. The men quickly chase Bond through snow and ice in a ski pursuit before he is able to escape in a hidden submarine.
Bond Visits: Siberia; France; United States (California)
Film Gross: $50,327,960--United States; $152,400,000
Plot Summary: James Bond (Roger Moore), is the world's only
defense against the destruction of Silicon Valley, and his time to complete
the mission is very limited.
Ex-KGB agent, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) plans to corner the growing market for microchip production and distribution by eliminating his top competitor: Silicon Valley. Helping him in this plan is May Day (Grace Jones), Zorin's agile Amazonian lover.
Bond and his friend, Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee), must also discover how Zorin's private racehorses are able to consistently take first-place trophies after every race.
Throughout his adventure, Bond finds love and assistance in the form of Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), a Californian geologist who was once swindled by Zorin.
Sadly, Bond has almost become a parody of himself in this movie. Without some serious regrouping by the Bond team after this film was released, 007 probably wouldn't have survived to see The Living Daylights. There's nothing noteworthy about Moore's final Bond adventure, save for the satisfying Golden Gate bridge scene and the fact that the plot is easier to follow than that of Octopussy.
Of all
of the dismal elements in A View to a Kill (and there are many), Tanya
Roberts takes the cake as Stacey Sutton, Bond's most empty-headed love interest
yet. Ms. Roberts received her second Raspberry nomination for her
performance here. Her first was for Sheena in 1985.
Christopher Walken is watchable enough as Max Zorin, but he's not a great Bond baddie, by any means. And the film's secondary villain, played by Grace Jones, is nothing more than a muscular sex machine for Zorin. She eliminates his enemies, while he makes all of the "fool-proof" plans.
The biggest, and most noticeable, problem with A View to a Kill is that it successfully stifles almost every suspenseful moment with stupid humor or idiotic shrieks of terror from Tanya Roberts. There are some imaginative action scenes, to be sure, but they are few and far between, and the cool Golden Gate sequence is too little, too late.
The best example of a promising moment gone sour can be found in the opening scene, where a Beach Boys song plays as Bond "surfs" away from his pursuers. How corny.
It's this kind of out-of-place comedy that helped to kill Moonraker, as well as parts of Octopussy. Director John Glen should know better. He's been down this bumpy road before. In Bond adventures, unobtrusive humor combined with hard-core action works much more efficiently than a shameful parody of a likable hero. There are many moments in the film where I found myself laughing at the movie, rather than with it.
Roger Moore goes through the motions as Bond, and seems almost completely sapped of the energy he possessed in some of his earlier films. I had a hard time watching the sixty-eight year old hero steaming up the shower with a woman nearly half his age. Whoa!
But it's not just Roger that's lacking vigor and panache. The same can be said about both the pace of the film and its generic supporting cast. But, as I'm trying not to beat a dead horse here, I'll just say that this is simply a very bad Bond movie.
The film, as a whole, is a streamlined, worn-out version of the James Bond formula. Nothing really falls into place. Only the originality of the plot and Walken's moderate villain save this production from a grade of "F". Regardless, it's still worthy of a spot beside Moonraker as the dullest, most uninspired Bond outing ever.
Grade: D