The James Bond Film Festival. Part 14: A View to a Kill

Cafe Society
1

The James Bond Film Festival. Part 1: Dr. No
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 2: From Russia with Love
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 3: Goldfinger
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 4: Thunderball
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 5: You Only Live Twice
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 6: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 7: Diamonds are Forever
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 8: Live and Let Die
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 9: The Man with the Golden Gun
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 10: The Spy Who Loved Me
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 11: Moonraker
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 12: For Your Eyes Only
The James Bond Film Festival. Part 13: Octopussy

In A View to a Kill, James Bond (Roger Moore) is pitted against super-rich industrialist, super-intelligent, genetic mutant and psychopath Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) who plans to cause a catastrophic earthquake that will wipe out Silicon Valley and kill millions of people. Why? Um… Because he’s a psychopath? Ostensibly Zorin, who made his fortune in microchips, wants to control not only the manufacture, but also the distribution of the chips. Let’s face it: Max Zorin doesn’t need the money. He’s fabulously wealthy. So the only reason he’s doing it is because he’s nuts.

Many people choose A View to a Kill as the worst Bond film in the series. Incredibly stupid motivation aside, I think it plays well as a movie. I’ve heard some people complain about the title theme. Maybe it’s a generational thing; Duran Duran is “of my time”. “Back in the day”, I really liked Duran Duran. I liked Dance into the Fire. So the theme didn’t bother me a bit.

What did bother me was the pre-title sequence. This was another Big Ski Chase. Nothing wrong with that, except that BCSs have been used a few times before in other Bond films. This one had a nice bit of “snowboarding” in it, when Bond’s snowmobile was blown up and he improvised a snowboard from one of the skis. No, what bugged me was that they cut from the nice, appropriate Bond music to The Beach Boys’ California Girls. Gods, I hate it when they try to be “cute”!

I thought the motorized “iceberg” was silly, too. The way it was speeding through the water, it would take a total dunce not to think something was up. And the plush interior was not right for a piece of quasi-military hardware.

Hey, anyone think Roger Moore is getting a little too old for the part? (Timothy Dalton replaces him in the next film, The Living Daylights.)

Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) was incredibly annoying! My god, does that girl do anything but scream? Oh yeah, she brays “James!” a lot. Aiyiyi.

One of the things I liked was the Eiffel Tower scene when May Day (Grace Jones) parachuted off of it. I thought it played well. I also liked the bit when Zorin had a Russian agent tossed into an intake pipe on his oil platform and the guy hit the impeller. That’s one for the “Gruesome Bond Deaths” thread.

The rest of the film? Well, I thought it was all right. I generally didn’t find it very silly. The sets were very good. The action scenes were good, but the fire engine chase was a bit over the top. A View to a Kill is not as bad as some people make it out to be. On the other hand, it’s not extremely thrilling. I was young when it came out, and I liked it then. It had Duran Duran. It had Grace Jones. Now… Well, I still think it plays well as a movie. It certainly isn’t as bad as Moonraker or as silly as You Only Live Twice. Not really a bad way to kill a couple of hours. I’d give it two and a half to three stars out of five.

2

This was one Bond film too many from Roger Moore, the best Bond IMHO.

This is not the worst Bond film of all, just Roger Moore’s worst one. It is dull from beginning to end and falls fifth from the bottom overalll(both of Dalton’s, Die Another Day, and IHMSC are worse). Walken makes a surprisingly forgetable bad-guy.

Oh, I don’t mind the Duran Duran song either. Not great, but not terrible. Amazingly, this movie follows the best Bond movie(Octopussy) and shows that the same people can make great and terrible movies.

3

Siliconfinger
I wish I’d come up with that, but I didn’t – a friend did. You know Bond’s really slipping when they start ripping themselves off. This is the second Roger Moore Bond film to steal its premise from a Connery one (The Spy Who Loved Me is virtually a remake of You Only Live Twice).

In any event, this isn’t as bad as Moonraker, but it’s close. Moore had a good Bond Film in For Your Eyes Only, and the first part of Octopussy wasn’t bad. But this film continues the slide back to Bad Moore Bond. They didn’t even try to have anything to do with the Fleming original they stole the title from. (They would be more faithful in the next Bond film, and it was a helluva lot better). As critics at the time remarked, the title didn’t make much sense. It wasn’t even the whole titlwe of the book, which was “From a View to a Kill”.

The characterizations and writing were bad. Zorin could’ve been an interesting villain. They reportedly wanted David Bowie to play the part, but he backed out, Christopher Walken, although I admire him, was just totally wrong for the part. Grace Jones coulda been a great henchman, but they clipped her part too much, I think. You had the feeling there was a lot more on the cutting room floor. Her conversion was too quick, too soon.

With justr about everyone else from “The Avengers” showing up in the Bond series, you knew it was only a matter of time before Patrick MacNee was gonna show up. Wish they’d given him a better and fuller part, though.

The stunts were good, but they weren’t handled right. The opening ski chase was good, but I agree the Beach Boys music killed it. The blimp chase at the end shoulda been a real high point, but wasn’t.

Tanya Robert should just go away.
All in all, a disappointment. The second-worst Moore outing as Bond, and it really should have been better. There was potential there. Moore had turned in some good performances as Bond, and should have gone out on a winner.

4

I’ve also thought that View To A Kill has gotten a bum rap. Some things that annoyed me, though:

The title sequence: I HATE, HATE, HATE the “neon in darkness” effect of the girl silhouettes. By far the worst visuals ever played over a Bond title song.

The really, really stupid aliases Bond uses. When going to Zorin’s horse exhibition, that long, snooty “something-something Saint James”…good grief. But that’s outdone in its stupidity when he identifies himself in California as “James Stock.” How clever. :rolleyes:

Grace Jones and Roger Moore in bed together. Even if Moore were younger, this wouldn’t look right.

The S. F. police were like re-incarnations of J. W. Pepper.

One thing I really loved about this movie that no one has yet mentioned was the fire-engine chase. Awesome.

5

In retrospect, I see Johnny L. A. did mention the fire engine chase. But unlike him, I loked it.

Chaim Mattis Keller

6

RELEASE THE HOUNDS!!! DON’T LET HIM ESCAPE!!! :smiley:

A View to a Kill…well its just…pleh!

Roger Moore chalks it up to another wunderbar smirking treatment of our hero with Walken (god among men) turning out a less than memorable Bad Guy with ex Nazi henchmen/doctors abounding.

The plot was weak…weeeaaaak. Must be the work of yet enough sooper wealthy madman. According to the past few 007 movies, money can’t buy you love but it can buy you meglomania!

This has the classic bondism. The slaying of henchmen in large fashion this time in the caverns and ginsuing one in a turbine, the goofy gadgets (I agree the iceberg was HORRIBLE), the now included ‘zany’ bondism (Whoever thought about the Beach Boys on the ski sequence needs to be SHOT). No lumbering head killer but now a spooky Grace Jones as Mayday. Tasty in her day and looking ok here, though still scary when rolling around with El Moore in the sack.
But it does have an ‘original death’…Death by Fly Fishing. Ok poisoned hook but that was still a new one.

Where is Oddjob when you need him!

This movie also signifies the last appearance of Lois Maxwell…our own beloved and forever hot on the heels Bond Lover, Miss Moneypenny. Still looked good in her last appearance too.

Next up…a new Bond (a bit of a crabby one too).

7

If you thought Roger Moore was getting long in the tooth in For Your Eyes Only, you haven’t seen anything!

Just about everyone has mentioned how silly this plot is. I think they tried waaay too hard to make Christopher Walken look like a maniac. As if flooding the mines and drowning everyone wasn’t bad enough, he shoots a bunch of them, laughing the whole time! Why didn’t they just make him froth at the mouth too?

This movie hardly even had good lines, unless you count, “the bubbles tickle my… Tchaikovsky!” as spoken by Russian Secret Agent Babe. Oh, there’s also this exchange, which I’ve actually gotten to use on occasion:
Zorin: You slept well?
Bond: A little restless, but I got off eventually.

Look for Dolph Lundgren as one of General Gogol’s KGB goons.

8

Well, at least Zorn didn’t kill all of the co-conspirators after explaining his master plan to destroy Silicon Valley in the meeting in the blimp, just the guy who wanted out of the plan.
Hmmm, judging from what I read, destroying Silicon Valley nowadays wouldn’t have too much effect on the economy…

2001, Jones Beach Theatre - In the middle of the Concert on the ‘Pop Trash’ tour, comes those distinctive synth notes -‘Da, da da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da–da-dadada’ - and I immediately thought “Holy Crap, I forgot all about that theme song”. It IS a pretty good song, you know (better than ‘Wild Boys’ for sure) :slight_smile:

9

To be fair, that was rather hip in the New Wave '80s.

But as I watched them, I thought of how dated they looked.