If I wasnвЂ™t so OCD about completing stuff IвЂ™ve started, IвЂ™d have given up around about The Man with the Golden Gun. And for those who call them a bit of fun, believe me watching these last ones has been a chore. You learn nothing you believe in nothing you feel nothing. Thinking of Martin ScorseseвЂ™s vilification of the Marvel movies, I think his criticism of non-cinema would absolutely apply here. Intermittently good stunt work, the odd moment of camp amusement вЂ“ not actually funny, but you know sort of вЂ“ a good villain or two, but the fact of the matter is they are unfunny, often boring and never believable. Revisiting in 2020 at the age of 47, I have to say thereвЂ™s hardly anything I liked about the Moore Bonds. Watching A View to a Kill I would have been 13 and I remember already being nonplussed. I just assumed all films by virtue of their existence would be amazing. He was the first one I saw at the cinema вЂ“ For Your Eyes Only вЂ“ when I was too young to have any notion that a bad film could exist. IвЂ™d always considered Moore to be my Bond. Who sat in the screening room and saw that and nodded and said вЂperfectвЂ™? ItвЂ™s the kind of joke youвЂ™d get on a weak ITV clip show, but that was more or less where Bond was. But director John Glen continues his penchant for reaction shots and вЂcomedyвЂ™ musical cues, such as the use of the Beach Boys in the opening sequence when Roger snowboards across a pond. The Eiffel Tower sequence is well done and the San Francisco scenes have a demolition derby feel worthy of Diamonds Are Forever. So we have a wonderfully muscular and feral Grace Jones, a beautifully gleeful villain in Christopher Walken as Max Zorin вЂ“ David Bowie turned down the role вЂ“ and a number of stunts that are so obviously performed by a stuntman, the phrase stunt double seems redundant.ДЄdd to this Patrick MacNee of Avengers fame, the future Indiana Jones Nazi Alison Doody as Jenny Flex (great name), and some exciting stunt work along with one of the best Bond songs, courtesy of Duran Duran and you can see that it defied critics and gave Roger a nice last bow, albeit three films too late. He needs to be surrounded by other exciting elements. Luckily the filmmakers have cottoned on to an essential ingredient to the Moore Bonds. One imagines he has to sleep with his eyes open now such is the tension pulling his eyelids apart. A disastrous facelift has left him with the expression of the permanently startled. Roger Moore is definitely on his last legs. It might also be that the producers obviously donвЂ™t give a shit anymore and that is exhilarating. One of the reasons might be that following Octopussy my critical faculties are so atrophied they might as well wither and flop off at this point. But with A View to a Kill, I feel the temptation to succumb. I know that throughout this Bond blog IвЂ™ve resisted the joys of the вЂњso bad itвЂ™s goodвЂќ brigade. So I guess the answer was probably an immediate YES! The year is 1985 Roger is an old 57 Duran Duran is topping the charts and the world seems a different place from Live and Let Die, let alone Dr. Has James Bond finally met his match? asked the poster to Roger MooreвЂ™s seventh and final outing as the British secret service agent.

Posted by John Bleasdale on in action, All, drama, Film, Headline, Reviews, thriller | 2 comments

Duran duran poster