We’ve not been kind to Roger Moore’s stint as Bond. Or, perhaps we could say the people behind those films were not kind to Bond during Moore’s stint as Bond. Either way, the Moore era end with A View to a Kill, which might actually be my favorite one of the the series.
For starters, the film takes itself more seriously than any of the previous four or five outings at least. It’s got a good plot, a good villain, and a good henchman.
However, it starts off on a silly, campy note, with Bond being chased down a mountain by Soviet spies. When his skis give out, he grabs a metal plate and uses it as a prototype snowboard. Unfortunately, what might have been a moderately fun chase scene was ruined when they start playing “California Girls” over top of it. Gah. It’s like the car jump in Man With the Golden Gun with the slide whistle all over again. And then Bond finally gets to his submarine, where he essentially tells his female companion that since it’s a 5 day trip back to US waters, he’ll pass the time by using her as his sexual plaything. Yay.
Luckily, the film gets better from there, as, essentially, Max Zorin (ably played by a toned-down Christopher Walken) attempts to basically do the same thing Goldfinger did but with microchips instead of gold. Zorin plans to set off a massive earthquale destroying California’s Silicon Valley, thus destroying the majority of the world’s chip manufacturing infrastructure and thus increasing the value of his chips. The film heavily borrows from Goldfinger in numerous plot points and homages, including subplots involving racehorses, the way the villain deals with recalcitrant “investors” in his plan, and so on.
My main complain with Walken as a villain is he simply isn’t Walken-y enough. As nice as it was to have the series become more grounded, it would’ve been nice to let Walken play it a bit over the top. But still, it’s a great turn as a villain, and a good death after a final confrontation on top of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Also incredibly scary here is Grace Jones as Zorin’s henchwoman May Day. She’s deadly, she’s creepy, and she’s the first sidekick character since OddJob to seems to want the ability to kill someone just by staring at them menacingly. Scary. And for those who find Grace Jones attractive (this does not include me), you do get a lot of her. My biggest complaint is her nearly inexplicable change of heart at the end.
And I think I’ve already expressed my love for the theme song. But this is an improvement, perhaps an “I’m sorry” for any number of campy missteps the Bond series made over the previous decade. At the end of the film, it promises, “James Bond will return” but without giving a film title, telegraphing the inevitable and much-needed reboot. That’s for the best. Vaya con Dios, Roger Moore Bond. Aside from a little bit of the silliness of the opening sequence, this is watchable and enjoyable. I give it 2 and 1/2 martinis.
