A View To A Kill (1985) - John Glen
The Plot
The Bond mythos rides the coattails of the PC revolution - whouldathunkit? Industrialist Max Zorin (yes, yes, another greedy businessman) wants to control the global production of computer chips. The fly in the ointment? Silicon Valley. The roach in his soup? James Bond. MI-6 only gets involved because of hints of industrial espionage coming from a dead 003 corpse. Zorin intends to trigger a quake and flood the whole Silicon Valley, and only Bond can stop him ... if only he stopped screwing around.
black or white? not a tough decision for Bond - he likes Oreos
Grade: A-
Locales
Siberia, Paris, San Francisco
Grade: B+
The Man
Roger Moore
This was Moore's swansong as 007, and although its not a complete blaze of glory, he doesn't completely craps out either. Although he actually was slowing down (stunts notwithstanding) ... you know why? Its when he gets Stacey Sutton alone in her huge mansion, saves her from thugs, and cooks her a meal ... and then basically just tucks her in bed. The 007 of legend wouldn't do that. Hell no.
Grade: B-
The Villain(s)
Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) - the best actor in years to portray a Bond villain, Walken plays Zorin with a controlled menace. Playing a rich megalomaniac (who's secretly a rogue KGB agent) seems right up Walken's alley, and eschewing the talky villain stereotype, he's more hands-on as he tries to hack Bond with an ax on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. now that's a badass.
May Day (Grace Jones) - yes, despite Bond succumbing to the tough, sinewy charms of Zorin's right-hand woman, I am categorizing her here instead of 'Bond Girls'. May does anything for Zorin, except get laid and loved. At least she got the former from our lothario. What she got from Zorin was a double-cross. Girls and their choices. Ay caramba.
Bond's first tranny encounter
Jenny Flex (Alison Doody) - Usherette in Zorin's private chateau, but more of an assistant to May Day. Dies in the mine explosion/flooding. Trivia: Doody would go on to play Elsa Schneider in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Pan Ho (Papillon Soo) - the other assistant to May, also dies in mine. Guess the ho's prospects didn't pan out.
Scarpine (Patrick Bauchau) - now this is his right-hand man. Again, follows Zorin around and even helps him massacre the workers in his dummy mine. Curiously, wasn't double-crossed by Zorin (or maybe in the alternative ending).
Dr Carl Mortner (Willoughby Gray) - responsible for HGH ... horse growth hormone, which is basically steroids for racehorses. How did horseracing get into the picture, you ask? Well, Zorin basically kept a stable of winning horses, and Bond needed an angle to check out his operation. This doc made sure Zorin always cleaned up at the OTB. And there's a slight hint that his work in genetics may have produced Zorin as well. As in literally. Eeeewww.
Grade: A+
The Girl(s)
Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) - an Angel, a Queen, and now ... a geologist? Roberts plays Stacy Sutton, a heiress to her father's oil business on the West Coast (?) and Zorin, needing the pipeline to flood Silicon Valley, attempts to buy her out. Among the Bond girls, seems to be most in the damsel-in-distress mode all the time (biatch can't even cook). But I guess most men wouldn't mind, keeping in mind that $$$ she wallows in.
Pola Ivanova (Fiona Fullerton) - KGB agent sent to spy on Zorin, but runs into James Bond under the wharf of Zorin's oil depot. Turns out they had a past (I wonder how many KGB agents had liaisons with Bond, and wouldn't the Politburo think this shit never works?). Bond of course swipes the cassette tape (at its commercial and cultural peak) of Zorin's conversations right under her nose. But not before indulging in some reunion nookie.
Kimberley Jones (Mary Stavin) - How does Bond get away with having pretty agents back him up on missions? I guess when you're 007 and you've saved the world numerous times, you can tell M to "get on to it, chap!" Moneypenny must die several times every single movie.
Grade: A-
Gadgets
A fun movie without too much use of gadgets ... except when circumstances really call for it. Early in the film Bond uses a electronic tracker to find the microchip with the dead 003. Also in the chateau, a shaver doubles as a bugsweeper and a tape recorder to play for Zorin's benefit.
Bond also uses a kind of X-Ray glasses - but it works more on heavily-tinted surfaces, not totally opaque ones; as well as a ring camera. Not sure about the MPx on that one.
2 others that were a reach in terms of the plot were the check copier and the "credit card lockpick" (dude, you can use any credit card to pick a lock *lol*).
One of Q's toys is a wheeled robot with video cameras that Q can remotely direct to areas that need a bit of stealth. This becomes only useful in the last scene - which really leads me to believe that Q can be a bit of perv and enjoys checking out Bond's conquests, despite his public protestations to Bond's behavior.
Grade: C+
Bond Moments
Jumping off the Eiffel Tower seems to be normal in this movie (the DVD documentary had a nice story about this). Basically, Bond pursues May Day to the top only to find that she has a parachute and makes her hasty escape through the air. Miffed, Bond jumps on top of the next elevator going down to pursue her.
Following that sequence, Bond hijacks a taxi and resumes the chase. The taxi has its upper half sheared off, and is even cut in two, but Bond gamely drives on with two wheels (raised howls in the theater).
Bond trapped underwater with his Rolls Royce, gets some air supply from its tires.
Bond avoids arrest by blasting a police captain with a water hose, stealing a firetruck and causing destruction across downtown San Francisco. Can you spell 'mayhem'?
With Avengers icon Patrick McNee playing the role of a horse trainer, he and Bond have to infiltrate Zorin's chateau posing as a chaffeur to a rich dude. Bond takes the role to heart and doesn't miss a beat heaping mild abuse on the help.
Grade: A-
One Liners
Zorin: You slept well?
Bond: A little restless but I got off eventually.
(morning after sleeping with May Day)
Tibbett: Another wealthy owner?
Bond: Who knows? But she certainly bears closer inspection.
Tibbett: We're on a mission.
Bond: Sir Godfrey, on a mission, I am expected to sacrifice myself!
Jenny: Welcome, sir. I'm Jenny Flex.
Bond: Of course you are.
(a nod to Diamonds are Forever's Plenty O'Toole)
Bond: Hello. My name is James St. John Smythe. I'm English.
Stacey: I never would have guessed.
Lee: Could Zorin be one of the steroid kids?
Bond: Well, he's definitely the right age ... and he's certainly psychotic.
Pola: In my dressing room, later, did you know I was an agent with orders to seduce you?
Bond: Why do you think I sent you three dozen RED roses...?
Goooooaaaaallll!!!
Russian subs always fire two torpedoes
Police Captain: You're under arrest.
Stacey: Wait a minute, this is James Stock of the London Financial times.
Bond: Well, actually, captain, I'm with the British Secret Service. The name is Bond, James Bond.
Police Captain: Is he?
Stacey: Are you?
Bond: Yes.
Police Captain: And I'm Dick Tracy and you're still under arrest!
Grade: B+
Overall
Roger Moore hangs up the tuxedo and Walther in style, and the screenplay's good enough to hold up. Duran Duran starts the party with the thumping title track, and Christopher Walken effortlessly defines what a true Bond villain should be: cold, calculating, ruthless and a dialing-down of histrionics. Casting Grace Jones was offbeat and brave, although she really looks like a dude, dude. To cap it off, the finale with the fight in the airship and atop the Golden Gate Bridge looked really scary. Moore walks off into the sunset, his legacy intact.
even before Weapon of Choice, Walken was already dancing in strange places
Grade: A-
No comments:
Post a Comment