A View To A Kill

Cast & Credits

Actor                                                       Character

Roger Moore                                        James Bond

Christopher Walken                           Max Zorin

Tanya Roberts                                      Stacey Sutton

Grace Jones                                           May Day

Directed by John Glen

Original running time : 2 hours and 11 minutes

After his appearance in Octopussy, Roger Moore decided to retire from the role of James Bond.  He always was weary of signing a long term deal and had all of his contracts worked out movie by movie since The Spy Who Loved Me.  As the search for the new Bond was about to begin something tragic happened.  The 007 Stage in Pinewood Studios burned down.  EON studios main priority was to now rebuild the studio (which was done a hectic pace in only four months).  Despite alleviating this major setback, the production of A View To A Kill was very much in trouble.  Casting for the film was far behind schedule and they hadn't even started looking for a new James Bond.  EON made Roger Moore an offer that he couldn't refuse, but he had it written specifically in the contract that he would never play Bond again.  Also, they made some very interesting casting decisions for the villains.  Christopher Walken was to be the main scoundrel and Grace Jones was to be his henchwoman.  Before I go on, I have to  admit that I am a bit of a fan of Walken's.  His acting choices are interesting to say the least.  It's like 90% of his projects since the Deer Hunter are awful and he wants to prove that his acting abilty is so great that he can lift a movie out of the sewage and carry on his back to success, but we won't have that problem here since this is a Bond film, right?  I also should probably mention that Roger Moore was now 57 years old.  Let's see how this goes... 

After the gun barrel sequence we see 007 in Siberia over the dead body of 003.  He finds a heart locket on his body and opens it.  Inside he is a microchip which he begins to inspect when he is barely missed by machine gun fire.  Luckily, Bond is on skis and tries to make his way out of there and fast.  As he is chased by several Russian agents with guns, we soon find out that they are the worst shots on the planet.  Snow sprays all around Bond, but not a single bullet hits him.  Using a little bit of resourcefulness, James commandeers a snowmobile which promptly is blown up.  Did I mention that John Barry's sountrack is going along nicely?  All the accents are hit at the right time and the tension is buiding properly.  So... Bond picks up the bottom of the snowmobile and uses it as a makeshift snowboard.  He rides up a slope and kicks a guy in the face at the apex of his jump.  As he comes down, if you pause the movie at the right instant you can tell that this is not Roger Moore, but some dark haired guy that looks about 30.  I wonder if he's a double agent and if this will be an important plot point that comes up later.  Then IT happens at that instant.  What is IT, you ask?  The soundtrack stops and the Beach Boys "California Girls" starts playing.  This completely kills all of the momentum that the movie had going for it by going for a laugh.  To make things worse, the song plays for a long time and ruins all of the work that the snowboarding guy put into this.  Where was I???  James then shoots a flare into a helicopter and then slips into a submarine that is disguised as an iceberg.  There we get a good look at Roger and see that he has aged about ten years in the last two, he sticks his tongue down a young lady's throat that's young enough to be his daughter, and then we throw up a little in our mouths.

This leads into the title sequence which I like a lot.  Everything in it screams 80's - in a good way.  There's hot models in mini-skirts pretending to ski covered in  neon paint under a black light.  We also the silouhette of a skier doing stunts, Bond shooting his gun in suggestive areas, and big feathered hair held in place by enough hairspray to make a major whole in the ozone layer.  All the while we hear the theme song by Duran Duran playing.  I don't care what anyone says, I think that it's one of the best Bond theme songs ever and it probably is Duran Duran's best song.  It's much better than the safe, by-the-book, wannabe Nobody Does it Better theme songs that have been in the last few of these.  Yeah, the song rocks and I also like John Barry's sountrack as usual.  One minor complaint - there's a lot of high pitched electric guitar stuff going on in it, but besides for that it's great as usual.

We are taken to a scene in M's office where M, Q, and the Minister of Defense are talking to Bond about the microchip that he found.  It turns out that it's identical to the chips being made for the British that defend against an electromagnetic pulse disabling it which proves that there's a pipeline of such chips to the Russians.  The company that made the chips for the British was just recently bought by a man called Max Zorin who happens to be racing a horse at Ascot Racetrack where Bond, M, Q, and even Moneypenny head to investigate.  There M shows Bond Zorin (played by Walken with bleach blonde hair, a top hat, and cane!) through a pair of binoculars.  He tells him that he is a French industrialist that was born in Germany that speaks at least five languages and has no accent (remember this...).   Next to him is his statuesque and imposing looking girlfirend named May Day.  M introduces Bond to SIr Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee) who is not only a horse trainer, but happens to also be a British agent.  After Zorin's horse pulls it off, Tibbett explains that it's not usual for a horse to perform that well in it's last furlong.  He tells man that there's a Frech detective in Paris named Aubergine that might have some information.

Bond sits down to have dinner with the French detective and he tells Bond that Zorin is going to have his annual horse sale in Chantilly.  Before he can learn more, May Day assassinates him with a fish hook (don't ask).  This leads to Bond chasing the assassin to the top of the Eiffel Tower where she parachutes off of the top.  Bond hops on the top of the elevator that's on it's way down and steals a Renault.  He drives the wrong way down a street, jumps over a bus, loses the top end of the car, then loses the back end, and before you know it is driving the front half of a convertible.  He sees May Day land on the top of a ship which he jumps onto, but we soon see her and Zorin get away.  After James gets yelled at by M for destroying half of downtown Paris, Tibbett says that he can get Bond into the horse sale where he will pose as rich, obnoxious jerk James St. John Smythe and Tibbett will be his valet. 

When at Zorin's place, Bond plays his part so well that we kind of hope that Sir Godfey turns around and hits him.  I'm not sure if this is a good thing.  At the sale we find out that James has a ring that can take photos, that Zorin is trying to give a young lady named Stacey Sutton a $5 million dollar check, and that Zorin has a very strong New York accent...  Anyhow, after snooping around a bit at night James and Tibbett find out that there is an injection of steroids that's been surgically put into Zorin's horses that can be activated by pressing the end of his cane.  Upon further inspection, they find an entire warehose full of microchips and a couple of heavies that Bond disposes of.  Just an observation, the heavies seem to have aged along with Roger.  This leads into a bizarre and irelevent scene with Max Zorin and May Day wrestling on a mat looking like they're about to get it on which leads to her going into her room and finding James in her bed.  I don't know what to say about this scene accept that it looks like Roger is just as uncomfortable as us in it which I guess means that I should applaud it while throwing up in my mouth.  Also, did I mention that May Day finally realizes who Bond is after seeing him for the third time after he tried to shoot her at the Eiffel Tower?  Ugh...  Next morning, Max invites Bond into his office and questions him about what kind of horse he wants while secretly taking pics of him and putting them into his computer which reveals that his true identity.  This leads  into a steeple chase scene where Bond rides a horse and the obstacles move.  It's like something out of a Matt Helm movie (he's the guy that was insired by Bond that inspired Austin Powers).  Zorin pushes the end of his cane which makes Bond's horse drive up to a car with May Day waiting with a dead Sir Godfrey Tibbett.  She strangled him!  They then push the car into a lake and wait around to make sure that James doesn't come up for air.  It's actually pretty cool how Bond gets out of this.

Next, we see Zorin on an airship (blimp) having a meeting ala Goldfinger.  He is talking about getting rid of the 80% of the microchip market that's being run in Silicon Valley.  He asks for $100 million dollars and half of what they make to be under an exclusive contract with him.  One guy refuses and May Day walks him to the bottom of the steps of the airship.  When she pushes a button the steps turn into a ramp and he falls out.  Good!  How dumb can you be to walk to the bottom of the airship and not expect that to happen?  After Zorin makes a great quip, we see Bond at a fisherman's wharf meeting up with CIA agent, Chuck Lee.  Boo!!! Where's Felix Leiter?  He says that after looking at the pics that Bond took at the party that one of the men, Dr. Mortner is actually an ex-Nazi scientist that experimented on pregnant women with steroids.  The chidren that lived had exceptionally high IQs but were psycopaths.  One of them was Max Zorin. Surprise! Surprise!  After exploring one of Zorin's off shore oil wells, James realises that he is pumping water in and not oil out of his fuel lines.  Also, Bond overhears him talking about something called Operation Main Strike (not to be confused with Grand Slam).  Bond excapes when Zorin finds Russians trying to blow up his fuel line (he recently turned his back on them and they're not happy).  This leads into Bond meeting up with a pretty Russian agent that he knows and has a jacuzzi with.  I throw up in my mouth while watching Grandpa with this hot young thing.  She tries to steal the tape Bond made of Zorin talking about Main Strike but he switched them.

James goes undercover as James Stock, a reporter from the London Financial Times to talk with Mr. Howe, the head geologist at City Hall who explains that the water being pumped in would be to test for leaks.  He noticed that Stacey Sutton works there.  Hmm.  He follow her to her place and breaks in.  She holds him at gunpoint with a shotgun.  Soon a bunch of Zorin's men attack.  Bond shoots them but finds out that the gun is filled with rock salt so he has to beat them up with his fists.  Stacey eventually takes a white vase filled with her grandpa's ashes and smashes it on one of the guys heads and we find out that it's an empty white vase.  She still wipes her hands off on her immaculately clean light blue dress like they're there though.  That's called acting!  After a long conversation James finds out that Stacey's granfather owned an oil company and it was taken from her father in a rig proxy by Zorin (now she works as a geologist).  He was trying to buy off her remaining shares with the $5 million dollar check.  They proceed to go to City Hall to find out eveything that's going on but are captured at gunpoint by Zorin who leaves them to die in a firey elevator.  He should have just shot Bond!  Needless to say, they escape and this leads to one of the dumbest chase scenes ever.  The less I speak about this, the better.  I'll just say that it involves a firetruck and the Keystone Cops in downtown San Francisco.  I forgot to mention that in CIty Hall that they found a map of where Main Strike is.  It's an abandoned silver mine near the Hayward fault.

Bond and Stacey head to the abandoned mine disguised as miners.  They notice a ridiculous amount of explosives going into there.  After snooping around they see that Zorin is going to blow up a bunch of bombs in underground lakes surrounding the Hayward and San Andreas Fault lines in order to flood them.  Also, a bomb is going to go off on the key geological lock that would get both faults to move at the same time and start a double earthquake.  This in turn will flood all of Silicon Valley and leave Max Zorin as the world's microchip overlord.   Even more ridiculous then this plan's plausibility is the believablility that Tanya Roberts has a clue what she's talking about.  So believe it or not, Zorin blows off all of the bombs in the underground lakes and leaves all of his workers to die including May Day.  He guns down all of the would be escapees with a maching gun.  Zorin cackling maniacally while gunning everyone down is admittedly cool.  Him, his henchman Scarpine, and Mortner get away in an airship to watch the devastation from above.  No one would notice that, would they?  Without giving away everything I will say that May Day's character is ruined, Stacey is so stupid that she can't hear a massive airship behind her, that there is a climactic fight between Bond and Zorin on top of the Golden Gate Bridge (Zorin has an axe!), and we get to throw up in our mouths one last time.

I have a confession to make.  As horrible of a movie as this is I enjoy it in a it's so bad that it's good sort of way.  I know... I'm sick!  There are things that are good about it.  The soundtrack and theme song are great and Christopher Walken is perfect as Max Zorin, but the love scenes now are downright disgusting.  Can't the ladies be a bit older if Bond's going to be this old?  Also, the entire thing was a Goldfinger rip off.  Let's destroy Silicon Valley so my microchips are worth more = Let's blow up an atomic bomb in Fort Knox so my gold is worth more.  I actually liked Grace Jones as May Day in her part, but she is given the Jaws at the end of Moonraker treatment.  Also, the movie seems to be on autopilot and it's like there's a checklist of things that have to be done, but it doesn't matter how well they're done.  Skiing scene? Check!  Bond beds woman?  Check!  Car chase?  Check!  Bond beds woman?  You get the point.  Also, did I mention how annoying Tanya Roberts is?  Hearing her scream is like taking two drill bits, putting them in the powered up gun, and pushing the button until the bits meet in the middle of my head.  Chames!!!  It's not James but Chames, trust me.  She's one of the worst Bond girls ever, but not quite as bad as Christmas Jones.  I have to give this:

1 out of 5 for a Bond movie.  It's not as bad as Moonraker because Christopher Walken is awesome and so is the theme song, but this is a bad, bad Bond movie.  Roger Moore stayed far too long whether you like him or not as Bond and the movie is very sloppily made.  I have to say one thing.  If you act like the movie was intentionally bad, you can get some enjoyment from it.  In that way it's much better than Moonraker.

Gross thing to know:  Roger Moore is actually older than Tanya Robert's mother.

Why Tanya Roberts was cast:  Her "acting performance" in the Beastmaster.  It's a good thing she's really pretty.

Thing to watch for:  When they put on mining outfits, Roger Moore asks Tanya Roberts if she found one that fits and she gives him a disgusted look.  This was not scripted.  Apparantly Ms. Roberts had a hissy until they gave her a sexy, form fitting outfit instead of the loose fitting one that she was going to have.  Director John Glen kept it in because everyone was tired of her attitude on the set.

Did you know:  Roger Moore himself said that he was about 400 years too old to play the role by A VIew To A Kill.  I guess that he liked the money.

Another thing to know:  Not only was this Roger Moore's final performance as Bond, but Lois Maxwell's as Moneypenny.  She was the only actor to have been in every official Bond movie up until this point.

Yet another thing to know:  I personally do horrible impressions of Christopher Walken that drive my poor girlfriend up the wall.  My favorite line that I use is from this movie... "Intuitive improvisation is the secret to genius."

Oh yeah... one more thing to know:  Dolph Lundgren has a very brief scene in this movie as a KGB agent.  Apparently he got it since he was dating Grace Jones at the time.

James Bond will return next Monday in The Living Daylights.     

You must have been looking forward to this, huh?

Yikes! I thought you would at least give this two stars! It seems that everyone and their grandmother loves to bash A View To A Kill so much, but I still love it. I even have one of the original 1985 A View To A Kill posters hanging in my room! I know it's not a perfect Bond film, but I don't think it's horrible.

The title song is awesome, and is my personal favourite. The main soundtrack by John Barry is pretty good as well. Max Zorin and May Day are superb and memorable villains. As usual, there are some cool action scenes. The Golden Gate Bridge fight in particular, is a very iconic moment in the James Bond series. And although Roger Moore is a bit old in this film, I still think he looks pretty good for his age.

A View To A Kill marked the end of an era. Some of the fans, and particularly, film critics, bash Roger Moore's portrayal of James Bond. It kind of reminds me of the Nintendo Wii in a way. Like the Wii, Roger Moore was critizied by fans and the media for being too fun/different and that he's not hardcore and macho enough. But yet, Moore's portrayal proved to be very successful, even with competition from other series like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and others. 

That's why Roger Moore is one of my favourite Bond actors, because he wasn't the stereotypical macho man hero that we see so much in movies and gaming nowadays. He just had a charming and campy nature that I found appealing, and I don't think there will be another James Bond quite like him.

In the dvd comments Roger Moore says that it was his worst Bond movie... I agree with him! It's the weakest bond movie in the 80's. But also it's a fun movie if you dont take too serious. Some sequences works very well but most don't. The script is as weak as Tanya Roberts acting (the worst bond girl until here). But I would give a 5.5/10

GREAT REVIEW, although I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.  The only thing worse than Roberts trying to scream act is you trying to impersonate her trying to scream act lol.  :)

First off, I'd like to tell you that your comments are always appreciated and add a lot to my threads.  I hope that you don't leave for the Dalton, Brosnan, and Craig years.

You and I seem to agree on a lot of things about this movie.  I loved Walken, Grace Jones, the theme song, and did enjoy the climatic scene on the Golden Gate Bridge, but pretty much everything else about the movie is substandard.  The script was sloppy and things like busting open a jar full of ashes without any ashes were unforgivable.  I am not saying that Moore was a bad looking guy at his age.  It's just when you see 57 year old Roger Moore in love scenes with women in their 20's it's pretty disgusting.  If Bond is going to do this sort of thing, they should make the women closer to his age.  This is why Maud Adams was such a good choice in Octopussy.

While Roger was not my favorite Bond, he was not least favorite either.  I actually appreciated much of what he brought to the part.  While he wasn't a macho badass like you said, he brought the entire British gentleman thing to the role very well.  I also didn't mind a lot of the tongue in cheek stuff, but sometimes it was taken too far.  This wasn't his fault, but the script writers.  I actually liked him overall as Bond, but thought that the movies he was in were inconsistent.  Let's look at my scores for his movies:

Live and Let DIe:  2 out of 5

The Man With The Golden Gun:  2 out 5

The Spy Who Loved Me:  5 out of 5

Moonraker:  1 out of 5

For Your Eyes Only:  4 out of 5

Octopussy:  3 out of 5

A View To A Kill:  1 out of 5 

The truth is that regardless of what anyone thinks about Roger, he was very successful and popular during his run as 007 is the reason that franchise is still alive today.  If his Bond movies failed, the series would've ended.  Actually, The Spy Who Loved Me was going to be the last one if it didn't succeed and that is one of the best Bond movies ever.  I rank it better than all of the Connery movies but Goldfinger and From Russia With Love to give you an idea of how good I thought that it was.  So yes, Roger deserves a lot more credit than he gets in my opinion.

Thanks for replying to my comment, amp! And yes, I'll certainly stick around for your other James Bond reviews. I'm glad that you also feel that Roger Moore was underrated and deserves more credit. I just can't stand it when people say that he killed the series because he wasn't hardcore/serious enough. If that was the case, then the series would have ended just like you said.

I understand that Roger's silliness could be a bit too much for some, but I really didn't mind it. I always found that Roger Moore and Sean Connery could deliver campy jokes in a certain way that it didn't seem too bad, while Brosnan was either a hit or miss. But if you don't take the James Bond character/films too seriously, then Roger's films are pretty fun to watch.

Like Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker, A View To A Kill does have its flaws, but I still love it regardless. The music, locations, action, and characters still make it a very watchable film to me. You also got to love Zorin's accent! The part where he says "More... More Powah!", after Bond looped the airship's rope to the bridge, always cracks me up! I also love it when Zorin laughs just before he falls off the bridge! Like I said before, it's not a perfect Bond film, but it certainly isn't horrible.

This was the first 007 movie i ever seen and liked a lot at the time. Even there are much better 007 movies, still very enjoyable. Tanya Roberts was hot, Roger Moore a little too old, the script ok. Love the theme song by Duran Duran, actually my psn id ( danceintothefire ) is taken from the chorus song.
Overall 3/5

I voted up For Your Eyes Only if you remember correctly.

It's not a 2, it's a 1 for a Bond movie which means that it's much better than most anything else...

If Grace Jones was in it, then it probably was disturbing.

Do me a favor and tell me what you think of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  I think that it's one of the best Bond films ever made.