A View to a Kill (1985) MGM-UA/Action-Adventure RT: 131 minutes Rated PG (violence, sexual innuendo/content, language) Director: John Glen Screenplay: Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum Music: John Barry Cinematography: Alan Hume Release date: May 24, 1985 (US) Cast: Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Patrick Macnee, Patrick Bauchau, David Yip, Fiona Fullerton, Manning Redwood, Alison Doody, Willoughby Gray, Desmond Llewelyn, Robert Brown, Lois Maxwell, Walter Gotell, Manning Redwood, Geoffrey Keen, Jean Rougerie, Daniel Benzali, Bogdan Kominowski, Dolph Lundgren. Box Office: $50.3M (US) Opening Song: “A View to a Kill” by Duran Duran
Rating: ***
The 14th James Bond movie A View to a Kill gets a lot of undeserved hate. Granted, it’s not the highest of notes for Roger Moore to go out on. It’s lacking in a few areas to be sure. However, it’s not as bad as some people say. I think it’s fun.
Moore returns one last time as Agent 007 of the British Secret Service in A View to a Kill. It opens with Bond retrieving a computer microchip from the frozen body of a fellow agent buried in the snow-covered mountains of Siberia. He’s then chased by Russian agents he adroitly evades on skis, a snowmobile and improvised snowboard before making his getaway in a submarine disguised as an iceberg. What’s so special about this microchip? It’s designed to withstand the resulting electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion. It’s a product of Zorin Industries, a large tech-based company founded by ex-KGB agent Max Zorin (Walken, The Dogs of War). The chip Bond finds is a Soviet-made copy implying that somebody in the company leaked information to the Russians. 007 is sent to investigate with Sir Geoffrey Tibbett (Macnee, The Avengers), a colleague and expert horse trainer.
Max Zorin, supervillain or psychopath? I vote for the latter although his evil plan to monopolize the microchip industry is definitely that of the former. Let’s talk about him for a moment. The wealthy industrialist is the product of medical experiments (involving steroids) performed on pregnant women in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. The surviving children are highly intelligent and extremely psychotic. Formerly with the KGB, he defected from East Germany and started Zorin Industries. He never goes anywhere without his bodyguard May Day (Jones, Conan the Destroyer), a skilled assassin with abnormal strength. His evil plan involves the complete destruction of Silicon Valley by earthquake in order to rid himself of his chief competitor. How he intends to go about it is far-fetched even for a Bond flick.
Bond girls have always been one of the main attractions of the franchise. It’s in this area that A View to a Kill falls short. Her name is Stacey Sutton and she’s played by Tanya Roberts. I had the privilege of being FaceBook friends with the former Charlie’s Angel before she passed away. I found her to be sweet in my communications with her. Unfortunately, she’s not a good actress. She’s especially terrible in A View to a Kill playing a geologist (?!) being pressured by Zorin to sell him her family’s oil business. I’m sorry, but I have a difficult time believing she’s any kind of scientist. Her character is a total airhead! She’s the worst Bond girl in the series. She’s incredibly annoying and can’t even scream convincingly much less deliver lines. Here’s what I really want to know. How does she do all that she does in high heels? She climbs out of a burning elevator shaft, drives a fire engine, maneuvers around a silver mine and walks precariously on the beams of the Golden Gate Bridge, all while wearing heels that miraculously never fall off. Wouldn’t it make more sense to take them off at some point? Given the nature of James Bond movies, I probably shouldn’t waste my time asking such questions. On the upside, Tanya is very easy on the eyes.
Directed by John Glen (Octopussy), A View to a Kill has some cool action scenes. My personal favorite has to be an early scene where Bond pursues May Day on the Eiffel Tower in Paris after she offs a private investigator providing 007 with information about her boss/lover. She escapes by parachuting off the Tower. I also like the scene where the inept San Francisco police chase Bond and Stacey in a stolen fire truck. She drives while the agent hangs on for dear life on the unsecured ladder. The climax features Bond hanging onto the mooring rope as Zorin attempts to make his getaway in the company blimp. Their final showdown literally takes place on the Golden Gate Bridge.
As much as I love Moore as James Bond, he’s looking pretty old here. At 57, it’s safe to say he’s finally aged out of the role. I could say he’s too old to do some of the spectacular stunts his character does, but it never stopped Charles Bronson. However, it’s weird (and a little bit creepy) seeing him in bed with women young enough to be his daughter. Jones makes a great secondary villain even if we get next to no background on her character. She’s a fierce warrior type; I like that. Walken is simply AWESOME as Zorin. I stop short of calling him one of the greatest Bond villains. He’s more vicious than the typical Bond baddie, but you can tell he’s not taking any of it seriously. He’s just being Christopher Walken.
Overall, A View to a Kill is a reasonably entertaining action flick and a decent James Bond movie. I’m disappointed that John Barry’s trademark theme is hardly used at all. It still has a pretty good score. It shows a sense of humor by scoring the snowboard scene with a cover of The Beach Boys’ tune “California Girls”. It’s a little slow between action set-pieces, but it doesn’t kill the movie. It’s sad to see Moore go, but it’s time. Thanks for all the great Bond memories, Sir Roger. It’s been a blast.
