A View To A Kill (DVD) > Reviews > One more for Moore

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Good
Soundtrack	Outstanding

Advantages:	Nice locations, good action scenes and a super villain
Disadvantages:	Moore a little tired and the plot isn't the best in the series

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

A View To A Kill marked the end of the 12-year Roger Moore era of Bond. At 58 years of age when the film was released back in 1985, Moore is the oldest actor to have been cast as the super-agent to date. To many, Octopussy should have been his last, but whilst A View To A Kill has frailties both in parts of the plot and the acting, it is among the more enjoyable films.

Partially named after the Ian Fleming short story 'From A View To A Kill', this mission sees Bond on the trail of bonkers millionaire Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), who is suspected of selling classified information on microchips to the Russians. It emerges that Zorin's plans are much bigger - he plans to destroy Silicon Valley, the chief source of the worlds microchips, thus taking control of the market.

Along the way, Bond meets the beautiful Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts), the films 'Bond-girl', who just happens to be a hyper-intellegent geologist. As she is a descendant of the Sutton Oil Company, it turns out Zorin has been trying to force her to sell her remaining shares in the company, but as she refuses, she becomes a marked woman.

A View To A Kill starts positively - the opening sequence involves a hectic ski-chase where Bond has been sent to acquire a microchip, found on the body of yet another dead double 0 agent. This is fairly good fun although some close-ups are so blatantely shot with a screen behind Moore that its not true. The theme tune, performed by Duran Duran, is perhaps the best Bond song yet. Its a lively and exciting tune that went down very well in the charts making #2, the highest position of any Bond theme.

The plot once again involves JB snooping around places where he is not meant to be, such as when he goes undercover as James St. John Smythe at Zorin's estate posing as someone looking to buy a horse. He is accompanied by Sir. Godfrey Tibett, his chauffeur. Played by Patrick McNee, he is a likable character but his role is all too fleeting.

Roger Moore delivers another sterling, stylish and smooth performance as 007 but for the first time in the series seems just a little weary, in this his seventh and final outing. The age gap between himself and Tanya Roberts (more than thirty years, I assume) is almost uncomfortable at times, too.

Tanya Roberts is passable as the Bond girl, but much like Tiffany Case from Diamonds Are Forever, has a classy first half that soon descends into the good old falling-into-peril-and-needing-to-be-rescued routine. She is at her least convincing when delivering technical lingo, but on the whole is one of the better Bond girls of the Moore era.

Christopher Walken's performance as Zorin steals the show though - he puts real character into the crazed French megalomaniac, and has genuinely menacing screen presence. He is backed up by the mysterious and deadly MayDay (Grace Jones), who has more to her than originally meets the eye.

Lois Maxwell, the only member of the cast who had appeared in all fourteen Bond films between 1962 and 1985 once again plays Miss Moneypenny, delivering her final (and once again all too brief) performance, with the usual charm you expect from her, accompanying Bond to the races early on.

What raises the fourteenth Bond film above mediocrity then? Well, the stunts and action scenes help matters. A great chase which sees Bond hanging precariously from the loose ladder of a fire-engine, whilst being pursued by police is superb fun to watch, as is a section in Paris where he is smashing round in a Renault 5, losing both the roof and the entire back of the vehicle. The final confrontation between Bond and Zorin is suitably bold, taking place on, of all places, San Fransisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Truly, a view to a kill.

If you don't like Bond films then there is nothing here that will change your opinion, and as with all Bond's the formula of events is the same and only the execution that is different. Is it one of the best in the series? No. Is it worth watching? Most definately, a classic staying-in-when-its-raining film.