A View to a Kill

Highly entertaining Bond movie

Surprisingly serious Bond movie has Roger Moore step up to the plate for the last time as 007 - this time tackling none other than a psychotic Christopher Walken.

One of the better entries, this film has it all - action, humour, beautiful locales, sexy ladies, a scary villain, great stunt work, a classic theme song and of course, the legendary Roger Moore as James Bond.

It's a shame that Barbara Broccoli threw all of this classic Bond fun down the toilet in 2006. Bond has always been silly and, sadly, the 2006 reboot has thrown it all away and has no rewatchbility.

Not as good as the previous four, but still a solid Bond film with Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones

A mission in wintery Siberia leads Agent 007 (Roger Moore) to globetrot from England to Paris to San Francisco and Silicon Valley investigating a horse-racing scam and the psychopathic entrepreneur, Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), who schemes to flood Silicon Valley for the purpose of creating a global microchip monopoly.

This was Moore’s last of 7 Bond films from 1973-1985 and it’s a solid Bond flick, just not up to the exceptionalness of the previous four films: “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977), “Moonraker” (1979), “For Your Eyes Only” (1981) and “Octopussy” (1983). Just as “For Your Eyes Only” toned down the excesses of “Moonraker,” so “A View to a Kill” (1985) scales things down after the ultra-action-packed adventures of “Octopussy.”

As such, the movie focuses a little more on the psychological drama of intrigue and rivalry. For instance, there’s a long sequence at Zorin’s impressive chateau and a horse racing scene that’s reminiscent of the low-key golf game in “Goldfinger” (1964). Despite this direction, there’s still a lot of action, like a thrilling ski chase in Siberia, a murder/chase at the Eiffel Tower & Paris, a brouhaha at a mansion, a fiery elevator shaft episode, a wild vehicle chase through the streets of San Francisco with a fire engine, an extended clash in Zorin’s mine complex near the San Andreas fault and a thrilling climax at the Golden Gate Bridge.

On the female front, Tanya Roberts is just stunning and has a couple of quality scenes. A year earlier she did "Sheena" where she had to thin down to fit into a skimpy animal-skin bikini (although she still looked great). Meanwhile Grace Jones is a formidable villainous with an interesting story arc. Mary Ann Catrin Stavin also has a quality cameo in the opening teaser.

I shouldn’t close without mentioning critics’ denouncements of Zorin’s psychopathic actions in the mines. I don’t get these whiney criticisms, are Bond villains supposed to be nice guys or something? Zorin is mad and this is what megalomaniacal whack jobs do!

The film runs 2 hours, 11 minutes.

GRADE: B

Walken, right, you can sit back and watch A View to a Kill because of Walken.

But let's be honest, he is the ONLY reason that you can sit back and finish this. The 70s, by 1985, were long over and Moore was clearly the 70s era 007. The mood, the atmosphere, the silliness, the feel of 007 needed to change and we still had 70s Bond in 85.

And then, Moore himself looked kind of like Bond in his 70s. He was far too old for the role. Too old to be believable as a super spy. Too old fit the part, and needed to pass on the mantel a few films ago.

By 85 the Silly Bond Era needed to end. They needed a new 007, and this, and Moore, just didn't work any more.

They tried hard to make this the worst movie ever. They at least made it the worst Bond movie ever by not only making it dull, without motivation, without strategy, without inspiration, without wit, but also by giving it the dumbest title ever (what is a "view to a kill"?) and the absolute worst theme song ever. A theme song that sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard, and that's the truth. It's the worst song Duran Duran ever did. It might be noted that no male artist should ever do a Bond song. The results are terrible. But it's mostly because the songs are written for a product instead of being inspired. Now, the story. Well, it begins with the issue of poorly bred horses being genetically maneuvered, which mirrored the actual events of the time, as it was during the later 80s when a very covert faction in Kentucky had closed meetings for an Equine club. To put it in a nutshell, some genetic engineering was obviously going on with the thoroughbreds. Six furlong sprinter Mr. Prospector was a big zero as a sire for the 10 furlong derby distance until the Equine club perfomed some covert acts. Either by genetic engineering or by early surgery to change the structutre of the Prospector foals. You see, Mr. Prospector was a Kentucky bred horse owned by the biggest farm in Kentucky. Well, that idea appears for a second in this movie, and is then never explained again, as if some big shots int he industry hushed it up. Meanwhile, Bond is paired with a plain Jane and the hot girls all get killed, to appease the female audience, and since about 1970, movie makers realized it was the women who decided what movies the family would watch in theaters. Christopher Walken is poorly used in this movie. He really doesn't do much. He's just an evil villain. There isn't any motivation to speak of for any of the characters. A lot of bang and boom that just gets dull and dumb. It's full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Roger Moore's last outing as 007 is his weakest. This story that Christopher Walker "Zorin" plans to dominate the world micro-chip industry by destroying California's silicon valley takes the franchise just a shade beyond credible. Whilst Grace Jones’ "May Day" is lithe and beautiful, she has no subtlety or panache and Walken hasn't the script or the charisma to do justice to his role as the megalomanic industrialist. Moore tries his best, and with early appearances by Patrick Macnee there is a semblance of some of the style of films gone before; but as it develops this is all - except, perhaps, the "butterfly act" about large scale photography and product placement. Duran Duran & John Barry got a Golden Globe for the title song, but that is probably the only highlight for me...

A View to a Kill uses to he my least favourite Bond film but since I actually quite like it now that would mean that spot now goes to Spectre.

Christopher Walken really saves this film from being a 2.5 for me , and Barry’s score is an absolute banger. Though on the DVD, the theme sounds very bass-heavy. Maybe it’s a regular thing, I don’t own the Blu-ray to this so I wouldn’t know, but I digress. Not sure why they ADR’d nearly all of Tanya Roberts' lines, it makes her sound bored throughout.

Honestly, this shouldn’t have been a Moore film. It would’ve made a much stronger debut for Timothy Dalton, imagine him going head-to-head with Walken. We probably would've gotten more intense close-ups too. Plus stuntman shots were distracting, they didn’t even try to hide him.

Still, it’s a decent film with a killer score and solid 80s entertainment value.