A View To A Kill Review

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DixieKong said:

Yikes! I thought you would at least give this one 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.

 

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.