The James Bond Rewatch: Current Movie - SPECTRE

[Doc755]

I’ve been putting this one off, and if it wasn’t for my rule that I have to write the review for the last film before proceeding to the next one, I might not be finally doing it. Roger Moore’s swan-song, A View to a Kill, holds a weird place for me. It’s not a good film and probably his worst. He should have left after Octopussy but stayed on as a favor to Albert R. Broccoli. He had definitely gotten too old for the role and it was apparent stunt doubles were doing a lot of the action. But this was a film, the first that came out in my lifetime, that I saw repeatedly when I was younger. TBS aired it repeatedly on Dinner and a Movie back in the 1990s. So much so, that I flash back to their discussions whenever I watch it.

So that nostalgia, coupled with the melancholy of Moore’s final Bond film, have always stuck with me. But the film has obvious flaws which I can’t ignore. The plot is probably the flimsiest we have seen in the franchise. Bond is sent to investigate a potential leak at Zorin Industries, except it’s almost as if they forgot about that because the first hour or so is about Zorin’s illegal horse racing activities. They do stumble upon his plan to destroy Silicon Valley, but I’m still at a loss for what this has to do with the British Secret Service. The CIA seems almost totally uninterested here. Thank goodness we have Bond?

Tanya Roberts is also the worst Bond girl of the classic era, and possibly the franchise. She and Moore have zero chemistry and the character serves nothing more than to link Bond from the horse racing shenanigans to the Silicon Valley plot. The film tries to make her mysterious when Bond first meets her, as she casually ignores his charm, but does a complete 180 later in the film without ever really letting her to develop. And I’m sorry but, who lets a BLIMP sneak up on them? I thought her entering a mine in high heels was the height of incredulity but shockingly, no.

Christopher Walken as Zorin, the main villain, also feels incomplete. Walken gives him that dash of wild insanity but it feels he’s constraining himself almost too much so that the character becomes forgettable. Sure, he gleefully massacres a number of underlings, but other than that, the film barely takes advantage of a big personality like Walken. Grace Jones was an interesting addition as May Day but is given little to do. My favorite addition to the cast was Patrick Macnee as Sir Godfrey Tibbett. Following in the footsteps of his former Avengers co-stars, Macnee brings humor and charm to a small part. I wish he had been in it a little longer. The scenes between him and Moore as a flustered valet and a fussy aristocrat are the funniest in the film.

One of the true highlights is the music. I’ve always loved the theme song and I especially enjoyed the slow, instrumental version that plays throughout the film. The scene where Bond first meets Stacey at the horse auction always sticks out in my mind because of the music. This is a scene where it usually hits me that this is last adventure for Roger Moore. More than any other Bond, the melancholy sets in. Connery would have three finales and Dalton and Brosnan never got proper final adventures as the franchise would be in flux. But people knew going in this was Moore’s final film, and as the Bond for the most official films, it’s hard not to get sad even if the film itself is unfulfilling.

Moore had a tough job. He had to make Bond his own while still carrying the franchise forward. More than any other, Moore was the gentleman spy. He relied more on wit and charm than his fellow portrayers. Coupled with the amazing stunt-work in his films, this gave Bond a more rounded characterization. It wasn’t just rough and tumble but Bond could also be dapper and equally at home both at a dinner party or clinging to the side of a plane. As the films became more action-oriented in the 1980s and 1990s, it’s nice looking back to see how Moore made the role his own using his natural talents. Sometimes the franchise would go a little too far into camp, and Moore had admitted that the more sadistic aspects of the character made him uncomfortable, but he still did a admirable job walking that fine line between his own sensibilities and the needs of the role.

I’m going to give A View to a Kill a 5/10. The film is an enjoyable enough watch but the plot is muddled and the characters only roughly defined. A quick shout out to the lovely Lois Maxwell, who also makes her departure from the series with this film. Her role as Miss Moneypenny had been more reduced in the Moore era which is a shame as her scenes with Connery and Lazenby worked as great character moments and it was not just something that was required to be in a Bond script. Although this is not the end of “classic” Bond, it’s definitely the end of an era.

Current Rankings:
1) On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
2) From Russia with Love
3) Goldfinger
4) For Your Eyes Only
5) The Spy Who Loved Me
6) Thunderball
7) Dr. No
8) Octopussy
9) Live and Let Die
10) You Only Live Twice
11) The Man with the Golden Gun
12) A View to a Kill
13) Moonraker
14) Diamonds are Forever