A View to a Kill

Well,l it took me awhile as I rationed out the post-Connery James Bond movies, but with A View to a Kill I've now watched all the Bond movies through the Roger Moore years. I'll write a post ranking just the Moore entries in the next couple of weeks hopefully, but here goes with AVTAK.

Reading critics' reviews and the message boards at IMDB, always good for a laugh, I was caught off guard by how much hate this movie has gotten since its release. It's in that middle ground of Bond movies, not great/classic like Goldfinger but not horrible like Moonraker or Die Another Day, it's average but still entertaining. The complaints are all over the place on this one, some I couldn't help but notice while watching the movie. Here's just a few; Roger Moore at 57 is too old for the part, partially agree, Grace Jones is one of the worst Bond girls/henchmen in the series (agreed), Tanya Roberts is annoying (yeah, but did you look at her?), and the general feel of the movie is too jokey.

The Moore Bond movies wasted no time setting a different tone than the Connery ones. Sometimes they did go for the joke instead of just making a good movie. In 'A View' there's a couple examples. In the bland already seen this pre-credit sequence, Bond escapes Russian ski troops, improvising a piece of shrapnel as a snowboard. Cue a 'California Girls' cover which is too much and distracts from the impressive stuntwork. They couldn't just leave well enough alone.

In his 7th outing, Moore is probably too old for the part, but he knows the character pretty well by now so it's not distracting. Maybe he didn't do his own stunts, which does provide some very obvious back projection shots, but all the Bond actors at some point used stunt men. That's part of the fun. Does anyone really think Moore, even in his early 40s would have completed the firetruck chase through San Francisco hanging off the ladder? I lean toward 'no' on that. What is a problem with the character and not specifically Moore is that the wit and one-liners have almost completely been done away with. As much as I enjoyed the movie, it's those omissions that generally feel like this is any number of 80s action movies and not a James Bond adventure.

The diabolical plan here is a timely one as Christopher Walken's Max Zorin tries to destroy Sillicon Valley with a man-made earthquake. With Silicon Valley out of the way, Zorin Industry can monopolize the world's microchip production, making billions of dollars. Walken is the best thing about the movie. He's the perfect actor for the part of a Bond villain, a quirky actor already, his Zorin is the result of Nazi steroid testing on pregnant women. The only side effect? The babies grow up into psychotics. It's a great part for Walken, and hops right into my top 5 all-time Bond villains.

Unfortunately, the supporting cast leaves much to be desired. Grace Jones is downright scary as May Day, Zorin's trainer/bodyguard/hired killer/girlfriend. The character reminded me of Famke Janssen in Goldeneye, but Janssen had some femininity to her, a lot of it come to think of it. Jones looks like a muscular dude and really doesn't bring much to the character. Tanya Roberts, while quite the looker, was not the best actress around. It looks like Denise Richards studied this part before her role in The World Is Not Enough.

Some other positives include one of the better themes after a couple of forgettable songs, this time around with Duran Duran handling the duty. The song as is is a good one, but it's even better as an instrumental with John Barry contributing one of his best scores. Good action here too, including a Parisian car chase that ends with an unnecessary joke with the car, a good shootout in an abandoned mine, and the finale on the Golden Gate Bridge.

So like I said, not a classic and not a dud. A View to A Kill is somewhere in between, an average to above average Bond movie. Of course, if you ask me, an average Bond movie is better than most action/adventure movies. Next up? I'm looking at you Timothy Dalton.