A View To A Kill (1985)

You know that feeling you get when you've been running for a while, and you guess that it's entirely likely you're about to puke or drop dead or both, and then you round the turn and realize that you're almost done? It's a glorious heavenly cleansing feeling that takes away some of that pain as you realize your suffering is almost at an end. And as I fired up "A View To A Kill," I was getting it all over the place. After this I was done. I was done with Roger Moore.

I can't describe accurately how amazing it felt to know that after I was done with this film, I would never need to watch another Roger Moore Bond film ever again. Of the seven movies he dragged 007 through the ham-infused mud as, there were maybe two that I thought were any good. Maybe two and a half. But they were always decent in spite of him, mostly being salvaged by a constant barrage of action that didn't give him time to raise his eyebrow and make a goofy face. That being said, they were never  necessarily good. They were just better than trash like "Moonraker." That's a bar as low as a limbo stick at carnival time. And that's as low as limbo sticks get.

So I don't even care. Even if this movie sucks like a puncture wound to the lung, there's still a silver lining in it for me. As long as I can grit my teeth for two hours and stop myself from punching my TV screen or swallowing my own tongue, I don't even think I'll be able to get that mad. But then again, it IS Roger Moore we're talking about, and the reputation of "A View To A Kill" does proceed it. We'll have to take it as it comes. Eye on the prize, Pat. Eye on the prize. Find your power animal.

"Slide."

We join James Bond as he recovers the body of 003, who had on him a microchip designed to withstand an EMP. Tracing the name on the microchip back to Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), an obscenely wealthy technology tycoon, he infiltrates Zorin's estate while posing as a horse breeder during a horse sale Zorin is holding. Right there is one of the more defining aspects of "A View To A Kill": The horses. While the poster and the climax both feature the Golden Gate Bridge, I'll always think of "A View To A Kill" as "The Bond movie with all the horses." Seriously, there's a lot of horses here.

Oh for crying out loud, the man looks like he just broke his hip. He's like the Crypt Keeper here.

Anyway, Zorin is naturally evil, he's a former KGB agent gone rogue, he's juicing his horses with microchips (?) so they win with the help of an old Nazi scientist, he wants to destroy Silicon Valley in order to get a monopoly on microchips, he's kind of a murderous psycho, and for some reason he has the same overly exacting model for Silicon Valley that Goldfinger had for Fort Knox. And of course, he's played by Christopher Walken, which really should have been the biggest giveaway as to his villainy.

That was the main reason I, perhaps foolishly, went into "A View To A Kill" with slightly elevated expectations despite the fact that it possesses one of the worst reputations of the Bond franchise. Christopher Walken being the bad guy is never a bad thing. I figured that, at the very least, I was going to get some awesomely bizarre villainy from one of my favorite portrayers of psychos.

And yeah, I guess I kind of got that. A little. This is not one of Walken's best roles, although he does give it the good old college try when the film actually feels like utilizing him, which is upsettingly little. Naturally they kept the best aspect of the movie in the background, barely having him say more than a few words until the second act, and not unleashing him until close to the end.

And dammit, when you have The Walken, you don't restrain him!

Walken does get a few moments to shine, particularly any time he has to yell or say something snarky or evil. True, the lines aren't anything the caliber of "No Mr. Bond, I expect you to die," but when you've got Walken, even kind of lame lines like "This is gonna hurt him more than me" can become shockingly funny. Seeing that he's a very funny guy I get the feeling most of his best lines were probably improvised. And that's why you cast Christopher Walken: He gives you gold from crap.

But long before we get to that, "A View To A Kill" immediately reminds us that even with the genius move of casting Walken as a villain, we're still dealing with a Roger Moore film. It comes up and smacks us right in the collective faces when a halfway decent opening scene featuring 007 flying down a mountain on skis as he escapes from bad guys (Seriously what's with all the skiing, Bond franchise?) becomes a joke when, after inadvertently inventing snowboarding in desperation, the soundtrack fires up with the Beach Boys crooning California Girls.

Because nothing screams "palm trees and surf" like arctic snowgear.

Not only does that not make any sense since we aren't in California in that scene, and there are no girls around, and even if there were girls there I don't recall Bond ever mentioning having a particular fondness for ones from California, but even if you were going to make that STUPID joke there are roughly a dozen Beach Boy songs that would have worked better. One about surfing, perhaps? True they aren't in the States in the scene in question but Surfin' USA would have at least been more appropriate to the situation. (Better song, too.)

You know, even with Brosnan's invisible car, the Bond franchise never reached these levels of face-palming WTFery as they did with Roger Moore.

That's a perfect example of why I can't stand the Roger Moore Bond films. It's not that there are jokes in them. It's that they always shatter the forth wall while doing so. There's a huge difference between Bond saying something witty, and having the humor artificially jammed down our throats with zany music, wacky editing or people mugging to the camera. It's the difference between doing some work to write an actual joke that would exist in the world that the film creates and just jangling keys in our faces like we're infants. And I find it insulting.

"Um. Guys? Little help?"

Whenever crap like that happens I get a mental image of some poofy haired old git in the editing booth whom, in his youth, was told by his mother that he was hilarious and should be a comedian, since that's what everyone says to anyone young of halfway decent wit and grasp of wordplay. Then he attempted to make it big on the standup circuit but could never evolve past "lousy prop comic," and after many rubber chickens, overly large bow-ties and crushed dreams, he mercifully quit and became a film editor. But still he tries to cram that hackneyed schlock into the films he edits in an attempt to prove his mom right. But it's still no better than comically large teeth and a flapping dickie.

"Bond frappa dickie rong time."

It really kind of continues like that for most of the film. Although the decent action scene can be found here or there, there is enough goofy crap that pops up at a consistent enough rate so as to make "A View To A Kill" fairly obnoxious to watch. Every time it starts to get going a car gets cut in half but is still driving, or a bunch of bungling cops show up, or Bond is plowing through the streets of San Fransisco hanging off the ladder of a fire truck in an incredibly reckless escape that probably left dozens of people and police officers dead, or Q has a little robot he uses to peep on Bond having sex in the shower (gross) or that one Russian chick says "The bubbles tickle my Tsiolkovsky!" It's thoroughly distracting.

I've mentioned Walken, but as far as the rest of the cast goes, with a few exceptions it's pretty weak sauce. Moore is absurdly old in this film, being 58 at the time, and boy does he look it. It certainly doesn't help that he's still banging women who look almost a third his age at this point. Grace Jones as Zorin's henchwomen possesses the charisma and personality of an industrial washing machine, and is generally just dull as hell. About the only smaller role that was any good was Patrick Macnee (formerly John Steed on "The Avengers") as Bond's alley Sir Godfrey Tibbett, but of course they kill him off, which was one of the only moments in the film which affected me on some level since he was about the only likeable protagonist.

In the interests of sanity I won't dwell long on Tanya Roberts as the Bond girl of this outing. In the annals of terrible Bond girls, there are many different flavors of bad. Some are terrible actresses and some are just playing terrible characters, but very seldom did we get a terrible actress playing a terrible character. Tanya Roberts is special in that regard. In addition to her character of Stacey being a useless liability that does nothing of value, Tanya approaches the role using the Tara Reid method of acting, showing zero emotion even after people just tried to break into her house and kill her, and delivering lines like "He must be stopped" with the same urgency as someone complaining at Wendy's that they got pickles on their burger when the order explicitly said "No pickles." About the only thing she has going for her is that she is pretty outrageously gorgeous. Well, that and shrieking "JAMES!" over and over and over.

This is the only time you'll ever hear the phrase "You were better in "Beastmaster.""

If I had to come up with positives about the film, I would admit that there are a number of action scenes that are pretty good. And even though it's clear that it was always a stunt double for Roger Moore, that did allow the action to be a bit harder hitting than some previous entries. I liked the chemistry between Moore and Macnee. There's also are a few times when the film actually got a bit dark, and while Moore himself disliked those parts, particularly when Walken mowed down dozens of people with a machine gun, it was a nice change for me because it made the villain more threatening, rather than having him essentially be Evil Bill Gates. And I must admit that the final fight on top of the Golden Gate Bridge is actually pretty awesome.

The Duran Duran penned opening is also one of the best Bond theme songs ever. Period. No discussion.

So how do we wrap this up? How do we call this one? Well, it's honestly not the worst Bond movie, although common consensus usually places it near the bottom. That being said, it's still pretty damn bad. As far as the Roger Moore series goes, it's close to the worst, but it's slightly less stupid than "Moonraker" and it's far more entertaining than "Live And Let Die." Take that for what it's worth.

Either way I'm done, son. Roger Moore is officially behind me. I guarantee you there is no person on the planet who is happier to entertain the notion of watching Timothy Dalton. The Bond series is about to grow up a little bit. The tears of joy on my face feel so good.

I have no words. They should have sent a poet.

Hey. You know what's more awesome than Duran Duran playing throughout the trailer? Optimus Prime narrating it.

THE BOTTOM LINE - "A View To A Kill" is goofy, somewhat confusing, and in keeping with Bond tradition, over-long. It's also got some really bad acting from everyone besides Macnee and Walken (and I suppose if you like him, Moore). It's not boring, however, which makes it watchable by technicality. Fans of Roger Moore will probably find it entertaining, but I found it somewhat obnoxious; Much like I found the rest of the Roger Moore series to be.

JAMES BOND

WILL RETURN IN

"THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS"