Story

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After two of the most forgettable films I've ever seen (and not just for 007 films), A View to a Kill was actually a surprisingly refreshing experience. After back-to-back films with heavy international relations plots, I felt good to go back to a basic megalomaniac / corporate espionage plot. Now don't get me wrong, A View to a Kill isn't good by any means. But after the slogging tedium that was the previous three films, this one feels like a downright breath of fresh air.

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As I've discussed before, Roger Moore is long past his prime as the British secret agent. He has acknowledged as much in the years since. He wishes he had ended his participation sooner and even said that by the time he reaches A View to a Kill, he felt quite uncomfortable in the scenes involving the young women portraying his Bond Girls. I have no quarrel with his performance (though I did notice a peculiar frequency of strange faces he kept making in VTAK). While I may not have cared for his gag-heavy characters and while I believe he let his reign drag far too long, ultimately it was the writers who let him down. If they had embraced the age factor, there was potential for a very interesting film. I mean how does one continue to be a world-class secret agent until he is nearly 60 years old?

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The cast he's been surrounded with in his farewell tour ranges pretty dramatically. Patrick Macnee (who sadly just passed away just a few days ago at the spry age of 95) as Sir Godfrey Tibbett is one of the better Bond sidekicks of the series. He is equal parts capable, cunning, and humorous. Sadly none of these things can be said for Tanya Roberts' for-looks-only Stacey Sutton. Once again we're given a stunningly beautiful young woman that we are implausibly meant to believe is some sort of geologist / savvy business heiress who is playing hardball with her father's oil business. I can only suspend my disbelief so long. And once again, we're handed a female character who, once the fighting gets started, Bond yanks the gun from her hands to take over and then literally shoves her out of the way (needlessly, I might add) before exiting the room.

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As for villains, Christopher Walken may not rank as one of the greatest (or at least most memorable) of 007's adversaries, however the role was fun to watch nonetheless. There are times where he and May Day engage in strange, mumbled banter that falls flat, however when Walken is on point, he's on point. He chuckles smugly during a conversation with Bond in which Zorin watches Bond futilely prolong his undercover persona. He speaks softly so that when he unexpectedly lashes out in one scene, it catches you off guard and shows you just a glimpse of the madness beneath. And then, he is psychotic. While he is by no means the first villain to turn on his own cohorts, Zorin takes it up a notch by cruelly mowing down his own men with a machine gun while they drown in a flooding mine. The man is pure "popcorn film" crazy. And as for May Day, I find the hyper-masculinity a bit heavy-handed and the inexplicable makeup/costume design to be too distracting. Now that said, I loved the loyalty reversal by the end of the film. It comes off as a thousand times more natural than that garbage they pulled with Jaws at the end of Moonraker. Additionally, I believe May Day acts as a fantastic foil to Sutton. Where Sutton is clueless, impressionable, and weak, May Day is proactive, decisive, and powerful.

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Perhaps my biggest take away from A View to a Kill is that it just wasn't as terrible as I expected it to be. The last few films have been getting progressively worse and worse. Moore's era has been plagued by silly studio reactions to industry fads, awful scripts, and mediocre filmmaking. I still believe that Octopussy was the bottom of the barrel. VTAK isn't much better, though it does feel like a step up. There are still decisions that were made that I just don't understand how they were believed to be the optimally humorous or most creative idea possible for that situation (Beach Boys playing over Bond skiing or Bond driving half of a car during a particularly wacky chase scene come to mind) but at least the rest of the script was filled with some pretty solid gadgetry usage and some great old school espionage.

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Look and Sound

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Director John Glen returned to direct his third of what would be five consecutive Bond films. While I've felt the previous two entries were pretty vanilla in this regard, VTAK provides some thrilling moments. Glen delivers his best work when the film is at its most suspenseful. The car wash scene, underwater valve scene, and city hall elevator scene all provide some excellent tension.

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I'm not a big fan of '80s fashion and many of the costumes and make up in this film felt especially lousy. Suits were poorly tailored and the outfits were outlandish. A generally mediocre ensemble all around was brought down in quality thanks to a pair of outfits donned by May Day and Moneypenny.

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Apart from the costuming, the general aesthetic of the sets and props were some of the best in a while. Peter Lamont (who had worked on every 007 film since Goldfinger but was in only his third run as Production Designer) put together a breathtaking array of locations and sets. It's no hidden volcano layer from the '60s, but I thoroughly enjoyed everything from Zorin's estate to the underground mines.

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Even the lighting has begun to feel more natural and less stage-y. As with much of the technical side of this film, the night footage is some of the best we've seen in a while.

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Aside from starting off on the completely wrong foot by playing Beach Boys during an escape scene in the cold open, the music of VTAK was pretty great. Getting Duran Duran to blast out a pop/rock anthem for the film (which even became a #1 hit in the US) comes as an enormous sigh of relief after what felt like the most grueling stretch of sappy love ballads ever assembled. John Barry composed his 11th (and penultimate) score for the Bond franchise. I particularly appreciated his decision to include a reprisal of the On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme during a fight scene between Bond and some of Zorin's goons.

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Callbacks, Recurrences, and Tropes

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VTAK doesn't really feature much in the way of callbacks to previous films. It also features no martinis but the film makes up for it with several fun gadgets. The entire horse sale espionage scene features everything from x-ray glasses to a camera-rigged ring. Between this, the multitude of chase sequences, and all the usual suspects of title sequences, catchphrases, and so forth, this entry definitely embraces many of the traditional 007 tropes.

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Robert Brown returns as M, Walter Gotell returns as KGB General Gogol, and turning in her MI6 badge is Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny. Maxwell appeared in all 14 of the EON James Bond films that had been made at this point. She is the only cast (or crew member, aside from Cubby Broccoli) to hold this claim. Perhaps appropriately enough, Bond nearly executes his old hat toss trick with Moneypenny's hat but respectfully hands it to her at her protest instead.

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Overall Impression

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All in all, VTAK is undoubtedly among the worst of the series, though it's not the absolute bottom -- so it has that going for it. I felt that Walken was an above average villain, Moore turned in an above average performance, and most of the technical aspects were improved over recent entries. However all of that wasn't enough to redeem what was ultimately a weak script with mediocre dialogue and continued, tiring -- albeit notably less -- campy humor.

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Admittedly, I'm rather relieved to be out of this phase and am anxiously looking forward to digging in to the Timothy Dalton era! I've only seen License to Kill once, quite a while ago so both of his films will essentially be first time views.

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Quick Hits

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Score - 59 / 100

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