A View To A Kill (Ultimate Edition) (DVD) > Reviews > Shaken Not Stirred, Well Maybe A Little!

Author's product rating:   

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

Advantages:	Excellent feature packed DVD
Disadvantages:	A disturbing revelation in the special features to hideous to think about

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

You are fully aware you're nearly the whole way through the year when the James Bond DVDS suddenly come to full exposure in the shops. Normally just before Christmas arrives the James Bond DVD's appear in the shops, Buy one get one free. Not this year however; this year for your £12.99 you'll be getting one, if you're lucky.
With the impending release of the proper version of Casino Royale (not the 60's comedy starring David Niven) the James Bond DVDS have had further restoration than they have before.

A View To A Kill

Roger Moore's last outing as secret agent James Bond begins in the usual off the wall style. Bond is being pusued across the snow by "unknown assailants" to the jolly tune of the Beach Boys "California Girls" before heading for a submarine discussed as an iceberg.

From here Bond is sent to Paris for a meeting; however the meeting is cut rather short when the person he is to meet is assassinated. Bond pursues his obviously female assassin who after a little gunplay launches herself from the building of the meet (the Eiffel Tower) into the sky. Rather conveniently she just happens to come complete with a parachute to aide her escape.

Bond is led into one of the most Awesome adventures yet, from a flaming building, to a racing day of death, from an exploding silicon mine, to a deadly encounter on a zeppelin. It also features two of the best villains in Bond history Max Zorrin and May Day; A View To A Kill Has It All.

The Cast

Roger Moore .... James Bond
Christopher Walken .... Max Zorin
Tanya Roberts .... Stacey Sutton
Grace Jones .... May Day
Patrick Macnee .... Sir Godfrey Tibbett
Patrick Bauchau .... Scarpine
David Yip .... Chuck Lee
Fiona Fullerton .... Pola Ivanova
Manning Redwood .... Bob Conley
Alison Doody .... Jenny Flex
Willoughby Gray .... Dr. Carl Mortner
Desmond Llewelyn .... Q
Robert Brown .... M
Lois Maxwell .... Miss Moneypenny

The Movie

I was rather surprised by my Timecoded DVD arrival on Monday, surprised more than anything else because I had no idea that the Bond movies were being reissued. But this was not an unhappy arrival as I sat on the sofa with food to fill an army.

I should point out that unlike most I rather enjoyed A View To A Kill from the first time I saw it. Firstly it was the very first Video I ever owned, and secondly I think Christopher Walken is a legend. The story itself always pleased me as it was the first time I had the opportunity to watch a Bond film more than once in close succession. I can still here my mother saying "That bloody film, AGAIN!"

The film is a little; I guess weak in comparison to other Bond movies. Some of the acting is a little wooden. Roger Moore, who was older than Connery really shows his age here, and does not quite have the speed and athletic skill he used to have. To he appears to be almost like Bond's granddad. Combine this weakness by a less than riveting storyline and I can see why many hate it. However the action is much tighter knitted together than any other Bond movie to that date. And from that viewpoint I personally believe it wins hands down, there are no long boring scenes that could have been omitted like many of the earlier Bonds. From an entertainment factor its probably one of the most amusing of the Bonds to date.

But wait, you have maybe heard this before. And my reason for writing this is to enlighten you as to what is different about this A View To A Kill: The ultimate Edition.

What's New Pussycat?

First of all, the Print. The film has been so well digitally enhanced in respect of both picture and sound that it looks like it was completed yesterday. Not 22 years ago. There is not a grainy image at any point during the film, everything is as clear as a bell. A nice inclusion which never happened before with the clean up operations is that this time they have moved the markers that let the projectionist know when to change the reel. For those not knowing what I'm talking about; have you ever noticed a oval or circular blob appear twice in close succession in 20-30 minute intervals during a film? If you have not then you need to pay closer attention, this will appear in the top right of the screen generally. For those of you that have noticed this and are annoyed by it, it's all gone now. The thing with Bond movies is that because of the vast amount of action contained therein these blobs were always much bigger than on other movies; and that was of particular annoyance to me.
The second point of interest within the film is that a deleted scene has been re-inserted into the film. It makes no difference to the story, but it's quite nice to see. This scene contains a conversation between the Grace Jones character (May Day) and Christopher Walken (Max Zorrin) who plays the villain of the movie.
Thirdly, rather like the star wars movies, the special effects that never quite worked in previous versions have been replaced or enhanced with CGI, to make them bigger and more impressive. It's nice to see that this is done seamlessly and does not look "fake" as CGI often can.

The Special features which are scattered over the main disc and a secondary disc include:-

Audio Commentary from the original DVD release of A View To A Kill, this contains conversations with John Glen the Director and other members of the crew. I have to confess I never listened to this, life is far too short to listen to an Audio Commentary that you listened to X years back.
The second Audio Commentary is by Roger Moore, Moore was always my Bond, as he was the main Bond during my childhood. And although I was always aware he was a bit older than Connery its kind of tragic to here this Commentary. He stumbles about a bit with his words, has vast lapses of concentration at various intervals. His voice often goes very croaky as he reaches out for refreshment. And if I'm to be honest I would not be surprised if he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. That being said he also has terrifically powerful moments when he laughs hysterically about things that happened on set. One moment I found greatly amusing is when he has had a conversation with John Glen before moving on to carrying out a scene. Moore states "And I said, you can P*SS right off! Glen replied to me, You cannot tell me to P*ss off, oh I replied I apologise would F**k off be more to your suiting?"

The next section features deleted scenes, and multiple viewing angles which are also installed in the film which you can activate if you select to have the announcement dot switched on. As a separate piece this is narrated by John Glen. He explains how and why the scenes were removed, and why he has chosen to now let them be seen. In honesty this is a little tiny bit dull, The scenes like so many on DVDs are nothing to write home about, and at one point I found myself drifting off.

Inside A View To A Kill is a featurette shown on ITV back in 1985 as the movie was about to be released in the UK. Again nothing exciting to write home about.

The Music Of James Bond is a documentary taken from an old DVD release, this explains how and why pieces of music are used. Why various artists were selected to perform certain tunes. This is updated with a small section by Bonnie Tyler on why she was picked to perform the title song to Casino Royale, and why she turned down the offer in 1987 to perform the title song to The Living Daylights. For those of you that wonder and don't want to by the DVD the reason she turned it down before is because she noticed that popular artists disappeared after performing a Bond theme, and also that the more popular artists were "Far Older".

Staying with music the next feature is the ultimate in cheese, it's the Duran Duran music video for A View To A Kill. All I can say is "my how things have progressed".

Next up is a 13 minute special from BBC's Film 85 presented by Barry Norman, I always used to state that Barry Norman never aged, this however proves me very wrong. This feature contains some nice footage and a statement by Norman that I can only describe as being very, very wrong.

Test Footage was not available on my disc, I tried it on three players so assume it was either missing from my Timecoded release or it was a touch faulty.

An Interactive Look At The World Of Bond; works a bit like an encyclopaedia. You get to study weapons and villains, I found myself keep staggering back onto the same information however so again this could be a disc glitch. However it was marvellously animated and quite good fun.

007 Licensed To Restore discusses the revolutionary remastering of the movie, and why it was felt a good time to proceed. However this contains a most alarming announcement which caused me great concern. They state that Casino Royale, although the most recent release is the first outing for Bond. They state that as a result we see Bond through his final training and on to his very first mission. Then the guy states that Sony pictures, who have now taken over the Defunct MGM/UA wanted a clean up and improvement process before….. Waiting for it…. They remake all the Ian Fleming movies in correct chronological order and to the word of the books. This revelation leads me to believe that the work of three very good James Bond's might be forgotten by the next generation of Bond fans. NASTY!!!!!

Next on the list is a series of trailers, this includes the TV spots, Radio Adverts, Theatrical Trailers from three different countries as well as old "remastered" release trailers from the 90's.

Finally a rather length photo gallery that actually has some rather nice images that have never been seen before. Including an image of Grace Jones hugging Roger Moore and looking in awe of him, a view few of us thought grace Jones would be capable of.

A View To A Kill is available from 17th of July for £12.99 from Play or £16.99 on the high street. I have to state that this actually is a remastered DVD that is worth getting.
 

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