A View To A Kill (Ultimate Edition) (DVD) > Reviews > Moore's Finale as Bond

Author's product rating:   

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

Advantages:	Digitally remastered picture and sound .   Great script and supporting characters
Disadvantages:	Lack of extra's .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

A View To A Kill is the 14th entry into the Bond series and see's the last time that Roger Moore plays the lead character.

The Details.

Director:- John Glen
Main Cast:- Roger Moore (James Bond), Christopher Walken (Max Zorin), Tanya Roberts (Stacey Sutton), Grace Jones (May Day), Patrick Macnee (Tibbett).
Certificate:- PG
Running Time:- 2 hours 6 minutes.

Disk 1 - The Film.

The film opens up with Bond in Siberia, trying to recover a microchip which had been stolen by 003. Bond finds both the chip and 003's body just as the Russians find Bond. After a hair raising ski-slope escape, Bond makes off with the chip in a boat disguised as an iceberg.

Cue opening credits.

Bond returns back to HQ and is briefed by M, Q and the Minister of Defence about the chip that he had recovered. The chip itself is impervious to the EMP caused by a nuclear explosion. The chip had been stolen from a contractor and given to the Russians. The main suspect is Max Zorin, a former KGB agent, although Bond doesn't know this.

Bond attends Royal Ascot where another mystery is unfolding. Zorin also owns a stud farm in France and is the owner of several racehorses who are winning when they are from inferior stick. Bond meets Sir Godfrey Tibbet and both of them decide to infiltrate Zorin's stud farm and investigate the horses.

Upon arrival, the pair find out that Zorin is indeed cheating with his horses and that Zorin is also hoarding microchips. Bond also meets for Miss Sutton for the first time.

Bond sends Tibbett to notify HQ but his cover is already blown. With Tibbett killed and Bond captured, Zorin decides to kill our hero and cover up both of these deaths by pushing Bond's car into a lake. Bond however escapes and follows Zorin to San Fransisco.

From this point on, Bond has to discover what Zorin is planning and stop the psychopath from killing millions and changing California forever.

Disk 2 - The Extra's.

As is usual with the second DVD, the extras are split into the usual 5 categories. These being:-

Declassified MI6 Vault.

This section contains 2 new extras. These are:-

Float Like A Butterfly - Test footage. This extra explains the butterfly sequence in the Eiffel Tower.

Film '85 BBC Report. This is a short feature previously shown on BBC television, showing some of the scenes of the movie. It also contains some brief interviews with the cast.

007 Mission Control.

Again this comprises of several categories highlighting parts of the film, from 007 to the locations and gadgets. Again, having watched the film, this did not really interest me.

Mission Dossier.

This section contains 3 extras. These are:-

Inside a View To A Kill. Again the best feature on the extra's disk. This tells the story of the production of the film, including information on the destruction of the Bond sound stage and the reasons why Roger Moore stepped down as Bond.

The Bond Sound - The Music Of James Bond. The feature tells the story of the Bond films, From Dr No all the way to The World Is Not Enough.

A View To A Kill Music Video. This is as it seems, the music video used by Duran Duran in their chart hit single.

Ministry of Propaganda.

This section has 3 theatrical trailers and 4 television trailers.

Image Database.

Again this is the photo gallery of the film.

Conclusion.

As I have stated before, I have thought for the last few films that Roger Moore was getting a bit old for the role. Saying that, however, he still managed to get the job done. Again this is still the case. Moore plays the role as before, with conviction and determination and as such he still plays the role well enough to be believable.

Christopher Walken has always struck me as a bit wooden at times, however with the psychopathic background of the character, this works in his favour.

The leading lady, in this case Tanya Roberts is introduced early in the film but only for a few minutes. This allows the script to reintroduce her half way through the movie as the person who helps Bond work out the nefarious scheme of the bad guys.

Grace Jones as the evil henchman is also a good choice, especially at the end of the movie where she effectively switches sides.

Patrick Macnee also plays a good role up until his untimely demise as Bond's liaison back to HQ.

The script flows smoothly from scene to scene and this time out the humour is not in your face but well integrated into the situations it is presented in.

On the whole, this is one of my favourite films of the Moore era and I would heartily recommend it to anyone.

The DVD packaging itself is the usual black on gold arrangement with the title being recognisable on the shelf.