Review – A View to a Kill

May 11, 2011

A View to a Kill – UK, 1985

Roger Moore made seven Bond films, more than any actor that has ever played the role of 007. I would say he paid his dues, and yet he never had the opportunity to star in a truly great Bond film, one that measures up to films such as Goldfinger and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. This is no fault of his, but the fact is that most of Moore’s Bond films have been more reactionary than innovative, more reliant on humor than drama. Some have simply been too similar to previous Bond films. As a thank you from a grateful studio, the least Moore deserved was a strong send-off, a chapter in the Bond series that would remembered fondly years later. Instead, he got A View to a Kill.

Those viewers looking for an exciting opening sequence are likely to be disappointed, for the opening scene of A View to a Kill feels too much like a retread of other films with one major difference. Bond simply looks tired in this one. Once again, we find Bond on a snow-packed mountain being pursued by Russian agents who are apparently after the microchip that Bond recovers from the body of Agent 003, who seems to have died in an avalanche. Once again, the bad guys can’t shoot, and Bond makes narrow escape after narrow escape. Making the scene somewhat awkward is the inclusion of the Beach Boys’ song “California Girls” as Bond snowboards down the mountain on what remains of a snowmobile. This scene is followed by what is probably the worst opening credits of any Bond film thus far, replete with women whose faces are adorned by glowing neon designs of such things as moon and stars. Each one of the ladies we see holds what looks like one of those glow-in-the-dark plastic squirt guns that Kmart used to sell. The images are accompanied by Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill,” and in a sign that someone just wasn’t trying anymore, a woman stamps her feet off beat behind a computer graphic of flickering flames while Simon LeBon sings, “…until we dance into the fire.”

From there, we learn the details of Bond’s next assignment. As it turns out, the microchip that Bond recovered has been built to withstand major explosions, and if such a chip fell into Russian hands, it would put Britain at a severe disadvantage if it ever went to war with the Soviet Union. The investigation starts – and ends for that matter - with Max Zorin, a French businessman suspected of having ties to the KGB. Zorin is played by Christopher Walken, who brings to the role his unique brand of zaniness, and perhaps only he can deliver the line, “I’m happy… in the saddle” with a straight face. However, there’s not much to his character, and an early scene in which we see him being trained in martial arts ultimately leads nowhere. During a fight with Bond later in the film, he never even uses a karate chop.

The best Bond films have been ones in which Bond must unravel a mystery, to discover who’s involved in a plot or what exactly the plot is. This is not one of those films. There’s never any doubt about Zorin’s involvement in something unscrupulous. How can there be when we see him in Paris helping an assassin get away so soon into the film? Usually villains send a henchman to do that sort of thing, but I guess Zorin is a hands-on boss. So all that’s left for Bond to uncover is Zorin’s plot, and unfortunately viewers learn what it is before Bond does. When I first heard it, I thought, “Is that even possible?” I asked the same question even after the exact details of the plan were revealed. I won’t reveal much more about the plot except to say that Zorin’s ultimate goal is to have a monopoly in microchips. This puts Zorin in the same category as Mr. Big from Live and Let Die – He’s a villain more interested in removing his competition than running the world. Somehow that pursuit seems a bit underwhelming for a Bond film.

A View to a Kill has a doozy of a back story involving an unethical scientist and experiments on pregnant females in a concentration camp during World War II. Apparently, the result of these experiments was the creation of a group of intelligent psychopaths that hold no grudge against their mothers’ tormentor. With the exception of Zorin, they dress as if they were a part of the Justice League even when they’re trying to blend in. Zorin’s head assassin has the unfortunate name of May Day (say it twice quickly). In an odd scene, a little romance breaks out between her and Zorin, and her response to it is to hiss, bite, and growl like a cat, which is either her way of telling him to leave her alone or a rather peculiar form of foreplay. Later, the script calls for her to utter that famous sentiment, “And I thought that creep loved me.” I can honestly say I never got that impression.

Tanya Roberts does a decent job as the initially elusive Stacey Sutton. She is interesting, for she’s not your average Bond girl. She’s more like a fish out of water. I also enjoyed Patrick Macnee’s performance as Sir Godfrey Tibbett, who goes undercover as Bond’s chauffer. His reactions to Bond’s attempts to take advantage of their undercover roles add a nice bit of realistic levity to the film. As May Day, Grace Jones is fine. The problem is that her role is one that we’ve seen many times before. However, it’s the story that drags A View to a Kill down. With the exception of a few well shot sequences, one in which Bond and Sutton have to escape from a burning elevator, I was simply never really interested in it. It introduces somewhat interesting plot points simply to introduce characters, and it follows too many good moments with bad ones. For example, the great elevator scene is followed by a not-so great scene in which Bond makes his getaway in a fire engine. There’s also a scene in which Bond presses a button and low and behold is lowered down to a secret laboratory. Just how many times have we seen this before?

In addition, Zorin may just be the riskiest villain in Bond history, and this is not a particularly good trait. At one point, a character referred to in the credits as “Taiwanese Tycoon” finds himself falling to his death into the San Francisco Bay after he declines to be part of Zorin’s scheme. You’d expect Zorin to go to great lengths not to be connected to a death as suspicious as this one, but you’d be wrong. He’s traveling in a hot air balloon that has the name of his company in large letters on it. You can imagine witnesses telling law enforcement, “I don’t know what happened, but there was a large Zorin Enterprises blimp in the area.” All in all, A View to a Kill is a disappointing end for the man who has played Bond the longest. As I said at the beginning, he deserved better than to go out with this. (on DVD)

2 stars

Review – For Your Eyes Only

January 29, 2011

For Your Eyes Only – UK, 1981

There’s something not right with the twelfth James Bond film. Perhaps it’s the ill-advised way it begins - with the brief return of a character most Bond fans likely assumed was dead. Maybe it’s the film’s convoluted plot, which involves the potential theft of a device that enables the British government to communicate with Royal Navy submarines. I say potential theft because the device has not yet been stolen. It’s lying somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, which makes the actions of the terrorists who are trying to find it and sell it rather confounding. Instead of murdering people working with the British government to find it, wouldn’t it have been better to monitor them? After all, the more eyes involved in the search, the more sea floor that can be covered. Perhaps it’s the odd lack of chemistry between Bond (Roger Moore) and the film’s female protagonist, Melina (Carole Bouquet). At one point, a carriage driver watches the way the two of them are talking and declares “Amore, amore.” How he got that from a conversation about revenge and her going back to her hotel room to be safe I don’t know.

Perhaps there are just too many of those incredulous Bond moments – you know, the kind that make you want to slap your forehead in amazement at the stupidity of either the characters on the screen in front of you or the writers whose words made them do or say such ridiculous things. In For Your Eyes Only, hit men have clear shots at Bond and don’t take them, only to be trying like mad later to make those shots. One particular henchman, a German biathlete named Eric Kriegler (John Wyman), is established early on as an expert marksman and then later can hit everything but Bond. Maybe it’s the unintentionally humorous sight of motorcycles with spikes on their wheels going down ski slopes in pursuit of Bond, who is suddenly a skier of Olympic-quality. In one scene, he goes off a ramp and before he makes a perfect landing has not only completed a full twist but also used the twirling skis to knock the gun out of the hands of one on the men chasing him. Who knew Bond had such skill?

Maybe it’s the poorly-done MTV-style opening credits, during which we see Sheena Easton lip-synching the film’s theme song, appropriately titled “For Your Eyes Only,” or the way the camera gives viewers an odd close-up of her lipstick-covered lips during the number. If you want to know when a supposedly romantic scene has begun, just listen for the start of the instrumental version of Easton’s little ditty. It could be the fact that the film’s most impressively choreographed action scene goes on far too long and resolves nothing. Bond is not captured, and the main henchmen escape unscathed, thereby ensuring that the plot does not advance whatsoever. Or perhaps it’s the scene at an ice skating rink that follows this one, in which Bond is set upon by a bunch of goons in ice hockey gear and an electronic scoreboard goes off every time Bond knocks one of them out. Maybe it’s the sudden appearance of a deep sea diver in a suit that bares a striking resemblance to the robot in 1979’s The Back Hole or the sudden superhuman qualities of Kriegler, which are too far too reminiscent of those of Oddjob from Goldfinger. Or maybe it’s the way the film ends by parodying a then-current political figure, something more characteristic of a film with Frank Drebin in it than James Bond.

For Your Eyes Only works slightly better than the previous Bond film Moonraker, primarily because it places Bond in a much more realistic adventure. Instead of undetected shuttle launches and plots involving eugenics and the creation of a master race, it has a more conventional story for a spy film. A valuable piece of technology must be retrieved so that it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. To prevent the British from finding it before they do, the villains after it murder two people, a move that buys them some time but also sets the murdered man’s surviving daughter after them. Therefore, we have a spy thriller combined with a revenge film, as Bond and the daughter join forces. The film also revives the Cold War subtext of earlier films, which makes the film much more relevant to its time than some of the previous Roger Moore Bond films. It all sounds promising; however, the film just never really gets going. There are two rather unnecessary characters and one of those “now you will die Bond” moments that will make viewers scratch their heads in bewilderment. I guess villains simply taste better than heroes. And what’s with every Bond villain living in either a castle high atop a mountain or a secret underground lair? I know these give us pursuits on skis, daring mountain climbs, and chairs suddenly descending to secret rooms, but just once I’d like to see a villain residing on the second floor of a ten-storey building. Their success rate would probably double. (on DVD)

2 and a half stars

Review – Moonraker

January 3, 2011

Moonraker – UK, 1979

Moonraker was not supposed to be the next Bond film. That honor was supposed to go to For Your Eyes Only, but Star Wars changed that, as it did many things. Bond simply had to be in a science fiction film. And it was not enough for the film to simply have space crafts, which You Only Live Twice does. This time, Bond had to physically go into space, and since Bond is not a trained astronaut – that would have been simply too preposterous, even for Bond – he had to be paired with someone that knew something about space shuttles. In Moonraker, that person is none other than a beautiful female scientist named Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles). I’m not joking. That’s her name. It’s almost puts “Pussy Galore” to shame.

It’s hard to know what Moonraker was intended to be. At times, it seems to be paying tribute to classic science fiction films, yet at others it seems to be blatantly ripping them off. It seems to want to be taken seriously; however, then it throws in moments that can only be described as sophomore attempts at humor, which take away from the film’s more dramatic elements. I have a feeling that if the audience laughs, though, it won’t be for the intended reason. For example, there’s a moment when a villain pulls too hard trying to open a parachute and the cord breaks. Instead of being panicked and fearful, the expression on the character’s face is comical. Soon, he’s flapping his arms, trying to fly as he plunges further and further to the ground. In a Road Runner cartoon, this might be humorous, but in a Bond film? The people trying to kill Bond should be menacing and dangerous. The men assigned that task in Moonraker seem as if they belong in a slapstick comedy rather than a spy mystery.

It’s not just that Moonraker is bad; it’s that it doesn’t seem to be trying at all to be original. It begins with yet another woman that Bond is seducing pulling a gun on him, has a character that announces himself as the villain about two minutes after he appears on screen, and is full of action scenes that are either predictable or are given no build up at all. One of these scenes involves Bond getting into a space flight simulator just to try it out. The scene serves no purpose but to enable the villain’s evil henchman, Chang (Toshiro Suga), a man whose mannerisms resemble Nick Nack’s a bit too much, to make his first of many failed attempts to assassinate Bond. Eventually Bond puts this character out of his misery, and the villain has to literally call for a replacement, as if somewhere there’s a company that rents them out to whoever is trying to take over or destroy the world this week. In another scene, Bond is shown driving a speed boat through a river in the Amazon, and in the blink of an eye, he’s being pursued by other speed boats. Usually we would see people hiding in the waters, biding their time, while Bond begins noticing clues. Not this time though. The chase begins practically the moment the scene begins.

This is unfortunate because Moonraker actually has a promising premise. In the film, Bond is assigned to discover how a space shuttle on loan from the U.S. was stolen while it was being transported to the UK. The theft is cleverly executed, and it is obvious why an event such as this would be embarrassing for two political allies. Bond’s investigation takes him to California, where it appears that every woman wears a shirt with a long, revealing v-neck and pants that allow their slender legs to practically shine in the sunlight. The villain is quickly revealed to be a wealthy man determined to conquer space named Drax (Michael Lonsdale). He runs Drax Industries, a company that among other things builds space shuttles, a fact that makes his motives a mystery, for why would he have to steal something his company manufactures? The answer to this puzzling question is less interesting than it should have been. The first half of the film, which is predictable and unspectacular, involves Bond’s investigation, and it takes him from California to Rio; the second half of the film takes Bond into space and attempts to dazzle the audience with its special effects and its elements of science fiction, including a impressive-looking space station, a skirmish in space between American astronauts and Drax’s soldiers, and an apocalyptic plan for world domination involving both positive and negative eugenics. The space station is reminiscent of the one in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the space battle, replete with Atari-like sound effects, resembles the underwater battle from Thunderball – slow and slightly silly looking. The inclusion of eugenics is interesting, yet it comes too late in the film to save it. In fact, it may have been used simply because it enabled screenwriter Christopher Wood to give a pivotal character a change of heart. Later, Bond and Goodhead wander through the space station looking for a device that must be turned off if Drax’s plan is to be thwarted. Sound familiar?

As I watch films, I often scribble down notes to remind myself of interesting parts that I might want to include in my reviews. Here are a few of the things I scribbled down for Moonraker: “again?” “henchman like a taller Nick Nack,” "why?” and “odd cut from ambulance.” Not a word of praise among them. Maybe the film played better in 1979, when the Cold War was still being waged and space was being talked about as a possible future battleground. Maybe audiences enjoyed seeing blatant references to much better films. However, I’ve always believed that a director shouldn’t remind an audience of a classic film unless his film matches it in quality, which Moonraker doesn’t even come close to doing. It’s also not a good sign when an audience member begins to imagine something that mocks what he is watching, and as the film progressed, I half expected a narrator to say in a loud Muppet-like voice, “Bond in Space!” If Moonraker did not kill off the Bond series, I’m convinced that nothing will. In fact, according to Wikipedia, it had the highest gross of any Bond film until 1995’s Goldeneye. At least, in this one, the villain doesn’t invite Bond to sit down after telling him he’d been expecting him. (on DVD)

2 stars

Review – Live and Let Die

October 3, 2010

Live and Let Die – U.K., 1973

The eighth James Bond film marked a turning point for the Bond series. It began the series’ seven-film run with Roger Moore playing the world’s most famous secret agent, and it departed from the SPECTRE storyline that had featured prominently in the previous seven films, although from the look of the villain’s set-up, it seems SPECTRE’s designer simply found a new employer. Live and Let Die also brings Bond into what in 1973 was a very popular film genre, blaxplotation, allowing supporting characters to say things like “You’ve got a honkey on your tail” and “For twenty dollars, I’ll drive you to a Klu Klux Klan cookout.” The result of this combination of genres is an occasionally interesting, paint-by-numbers Bond film that unfortunately does not match the excitement or fun of most of its predecessors.

In the film, Bond is assigned to investigate the murder of three British agents. The first dies after some bizarre, high-pitched sound rings through his earphones during a meeting at U.N. headquarters in New York City. The second is stabbed as he is standing on a New Orleans sidewalk. His body is then picked up by the funeral procession that just happens to be passing by at that very moment. The other one dies somewhat quickly tied to a pole during a rather frightening cult-like ceremony. The green snake that bit him must have been quite poisonous. This means that people with high level security clearance, average citizens of New Orleans, and a large number of the residents of a Caribbean island called San Monique are potentially involved in a massive conspiracy, And the number of people in on the plot grows exponentially as the film goes on. Eventually, it includes taxi drivers, law enforcement officials, and seemingly ordinary men who shine shoes. It all adds up to an equation that would make Franciscan friar William of Ockham roll over in his grave. Yet perhaps it’s too late to be applying Occam’s razor to Bond films.

Bond’s involvement in the investigation is anticipated by a tarot-card reading temptress by the name of Solitaire (Jane Seymour), and before he’s even had time to begin his investigation, Bond’s driver is dead and Bond is pursuing a lead at the aptly named OH Cult Voodoo Shop. (A suggestion to villains everywhere: Avoid names that obviously connect you to the crimes you are committing.) His investigation eventually leads him to two suspects, an aspiring drug dealer in the U.S. named Mr. Big and Kananga, the leader of San Monique. The contrast here is interesting, for each of these characters intends to exploit people’s weaknesses. Mr. Big intends to use drugs and people’s addiction to them to achieve the power he desires, and on the other side of the world, Kananga uses people’s superstitions and fears to keep them under his control. Both strategies make perfect sense, even if some of the images we see in the film have the potential to cause a knee-jerk, politically-correct reaction in viewers.

It seems odd however for Solitaire to actually have the gift of seeing into the future, as Bond films have always been based on real-world scenarios that while being both fun and silly were nonetheless possible in Bond’s world. Sure, there have also been super-villains, but these villains never actually had supernatural powers; they were simply very strong. I suppose Solitaire’s power has something to do with the fact that part of the movie takes place in New Orleans, where movies continue to depict some people as believing that tarot cards can tell the future. However, not even the New Orleans storyline can explain away the origin of Solitaire’s power or how those powers can be lost. Those are pure fantasy, and they weaken the film slightly. For some viewers, having a supernatural element in a Bond film will be nearly the equivalent of having Indiana Jones, a character devoted to facts, history, and archeology, chase after aliens.

The biggest problem with Live and Let Die is simply its predictability. From turning a villain into an ally to Bond being caught but given ample opportunity to escape yet again, there’s not much that happens that we haven’t seen before. In fact, the film’s final scene is so similar to the final scene in Diamonds are Forever that I’m shocked a rewrite wasn’t called for. Sure, the setting of the film is different, but that does not seem to have energized or inspired writer Tom Mankiewicz or director Guy Hamilton. Unfortunately, scenes that should be exciting are simply too long or just plain silly. There’s a very long chase involving boats that ultimately resolves nothing, and there’s an earlier scene set in an airport hanger that features Bond slowly evading capture while those pursuing him skid or jump into idle planes. The latter scene was incredibly juvenile, and not in a good way. In addition, Bond’s much touted crocodile escape was foreshadowed too far in advance to be truly exciting. There’s also an odd moment that will – perhaps intentionally - remind people of King Kong. While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with a director or writer paying homage to an earlier film, I’m not sure that it’s wise to remind the people watching your film of a much better one. In the end, Live and Let Die feels more like a missed opportunity than an invigorating fresh start. (on DVD)

2 and a half stars