hey everybody and welcome back to james bond revisited and now i have the sad duty to close
out my beloved roger moore era with his final entry into the series of a view to a kill
now roger moore was famously ready to leave the james bond franchise after fury rise only but he
was enticed to come back for the follow-up octopussy because it was going up against
sean connery's never say never again at the box office and audiences worldwide actually preferred
octopussy to never say never again with it making significantly more money at the box office so
clearly audiences still loved roger moore in the role so as a result he on pictures enticed him
back for yet another james bond movie although he was now 58 years old and would be doubled
heavily throughout a movie that many james bond fans think he was just too old to ever do
when we look back at roger moore as james bond i think people's ageism does come out a little bit
people always say that he was too old to play james bond i don't think he was too old to play
james bond i think the problem with roger moore as james bond was that he was playing
james bond as ostensibly a guy in his 30s if they had acknowledged roger moore's age more
like they did in for your eyes only i think people would have had a much easier time accepting him as
the role went on the problem with a view to a kill is that he's paired up with tanya roberts who is
about 30 years younger than him roger moore in his biography which appropriately is titled my wood is
my bond actually said that he was older than tanya roberts's mother when he was making this movie and
that's what told him he had to leave the part now looking at this movie it's clear that roger
moore before he did view a kill might have been worried about his age and elected to have a little
bit of plastic surgery he may have denied this over the years but if you look around his eyes
clearly something's been done and his mole is gone the famous roger moore mole has been removed i
love that mole i mean that mole is what made james bond for me anyway getting back to a view to a
kill it is a movie that i think people have kind of come around to over the years it was widely
mocked when it came out but there's something of a cult around it in fact it was recently celebrated
on how did this get made and you know my own fiancee says that it's probably her favorite james
bond film just because it's so silly and so much fun to watch i got to see it in 4k had a cineplex
flashback screening some years ago before you know the world shutdown and movie theaters were still
a thing and if you do a kill really does hold up it's a lot of fun now in this one james bond goes
up against a silicon valley microchip magnet named max sorin played by none other than christopher
walken with ties to the kgb now as much as i loved octopussy i'll be the first to admit that
more really probably should have left the series after wrapping that film i think it would have
been an excellent swan song and would have sent him out on a high note in the dvd commentary of
this roger moore acknowledges over and over again that he should have sat this one out
and he's always said that it's his least favorite james blonde movie and it's almost unintentionally
funny watching roger moore in the film as he kind of comes across as a little bit lecherous again
a problem with the fact that his leading lady is something like 30 years younger than him he's not
as suave as he was in previous installments also it has to be said roger moore has doubled a lot in
this movie like a lot i think he might have just shown up to do his close-ups otherwise he's barely
in the film the beginning of the movie where he's skiing in siberia i mean i don't think roger moore
was ever on location he's got a close-up that they throw him in and then when he gets on the iceberg
boat to seduce the girl who's like 20. yeah it's roger moore because you know he'll do those scenes
but the ski chase yeah i don't think there's much roger moore there except for a couple of
grunts that they dubbed into the soundtrack where he goes ooh and ah in the classic roger moore way
that said roger moore is really not the only problem with a view to a kill it's never going
to be remembered as one of the better entries in the series and i think the fact is it's kind
of an unimaginative outing the filmmakers i think were trying to recapture the magic of goldfinger
in this film but what they did is they replaced gold with microchips now that's kind of forward
thinking i guess because you know computers and silicon valley did become a big thing and at the
time it was kind of cutting edge but i mean it's fairly silly and second rate at times there are
some good action scenes including a parachute jump off the eiffel tower but otherwise i don't think
it really holds up as the most dynamic james bond movie although it's certainly a lot of fun and it
has a great soundtrack so let's get into this movie a little bit everything that's wrong with
roger moore in this film as i said before can be summed up by the opening teaser where we get this
really amazing action sequence which is probably the best in the film but we barely see roger
moore's face because he was doubled for almost the entire thing what's worse is when they finally do
reveal his face and he's hitting on the girl that looks like she could be his granddaughter
she doesn't seem attracted to him which is crazy for a bond movie i mean he's james bond he's hot
now for bond to work as a lady killer he has to be believably attracted to women and i think that
roger moore at this point was just a little bit too old they should have made the women in these
films a little bit older and i think it would have gone over a lot better he just didn't come
off in this one as an action star or a ladies man and he feels kind of ancient in the world which is
funny because if you look at him 10 years later actually 12 years later in the quest he looks
a lot more fit and he looks a lot more into the action even opposite somebody like jean-claude van
damme who's over 30 years younger than him i think at this point roger moore was just kind of getting
tired of the part and it's a real shame this was his last james bond movie because he deserved to
go out on a higher note and i think that octopussy as much as some people have problems with it
would have fit the bill perfectly now the screenplay in this one as i said before is
lazy so it gets kind of a 5 on 10. it's a lot of michael g wilson's writing involved with richard
maybaum and it's not one of their best outings the villains this is a controversial one now
people love christopher walken i love christopher walken but when christopher walken did a view to a
kill he wasn't quote-unquote christopher walken or at least not the scenery showing christopher
walken that we know nowadays i believe that that christopher walken was born when he did king of
new york in this one he's just kind of you know along for the ride he's fine but i don't think
that he's one of the classic james bond villains although he's got fantastic hair in this movie i
mean the movie is all about his hair glocken does his best to make the character work and
seems amused by roger moore and also has a psychotic edge which is pretty good although roger
moore himself took issue with the scene where zorin's just mowing down all of his employees
in a mineshaft saying that it was probably the most violent scene in a james bond movie up to
that point and he thought it was overkill it's funny because i kind of love to see walking come
back and play a james bond villain again for him i give him about a 7 on 10. wow what a view
but my favorite villain of the movie is definitely grace jones as mayday his henchwoman now as much
as christopher walken is kinda i don't know if i'd say he's necessarily phoning it in but
seems you know not super engaged grace jones is having the time of her life is delighting
being the bad girl and is really physically fit i mean when you see her go up against roger moore
i really think that you know grace jones could have kicked his ass i mean she was chiseled in
this movie and really brings a lot of menace to the part but then at the end when mayday actually
kind of becomes good she brings a lot of pathos to the part especially when she sees alice and
dodie's jenny flex lying dead in a pool of water she has this agonized cream of jenny that i think
actually really works she really does care about these people and i think the problem
with mayday is she was always a misfit and felt that zorin was her family and when he betrays her
her hurt is palpable so that makes her transition to being a bond ally at the end of the movie
quite powerful it's weird when i was younger i used to not like her so much in the part because
i thought she was too much but now i think she really kind of saves the movie i love grace jones
in this and should check out some of her music grace jones really rocks i'd give her a 10 on 10.
now the bond girls the late tanya roberts is absolutely beautiful but they do not do much
with her in this movie i have to say her stacy sutton is pretty bland she's a beautiful woman
but it's a nothing role and the filmmakers don't even really give her a chance to be sexy as she
wears all these big boxy 80s style blouses with big shoulder pads in fact when i said
earlier that roger moore said that her mother was younger than him in fact she was only 45 years old
which was the age that roger moore was when he started playing james bond and live and let die
i mean yeah i could see why that would maybe put a chip on his shoulder so for bond girls i give
her a six on ten although i really don't think this is tanya roberts's fault she's beautiful
if you really want to see her at her best check out the beastmaster check out sheena or check out
that 70s show she's great now bond music now we're talking john berry is back to provide a memorable
james bond score and he gives it kind of an 80s new wave sound which surprisingly doesn't sound
dated at all i think that barry was really good to jumping onto these cutting edge trends and
i have to say the theme song by duran duran is one of the best of the whole series i like the
soundtrack a lot i'd give it a 10 on 10. in fact i sometimes listen to it on spotify just cause it's
kind of kick ass the body count funny enough bond actually only kills two people in this movie but
it's still one of the more violent james bond movies because watkins zorin is psychotic and
not only mows down his employees but also has a couple of scenes where he murders people in
really grotesque ways like this one part where he puts a spy down an engine and he just gets
shredded by a propeller i remember thinking that was pretty hardcore when i was a kid and
yeah it's still pretty hardcore nowadays now bond sleeps with a lot of women in this movie
and if james bond was a little bit over the hill he was still taking his viagra because you know
that's that's four women in this movie it's pretty good not bad for roger moore in some ways i think
his best chemistry is with fiona fullerton who plays pola ivanola a kgb agent who actually really
seems turned on by roger moore so i feel like she should have been the leading lady in this movie
now there's not a ton of great one-liners in this movie but christopher walken gets off a good one
when he drops a tycoon out of a blimp and says so anyone else want to drop out there is however
a really gross double entendre where james bond has a meeting with max zorin just after
having slept with mayday and zoran asks him you slept well and blonde says a little restless
but i got off eventually i think we all know what he's talking about right and it's kinda gross
now there are some terrible gadgets in this movie there are some x-ray glasses that roger moore
wears at one point that are the most hilarious thing i've ever seen i mean if he's trying to be
undercover at a party and he's got these massive lenses that he has to adjust and hold into place
it's not really working there's also like a rocky iv style robot that q is using at the end to spy
on james bond while he's having sex with stacy sutton in the shower and it's a little bit weird
and i think q seems to be a bit of a peeper right now this isn't one of the better james bond films
but it actually did pretty well at the box office it made about 49 million dollars in the u.s and
152 million dollars worldwide but significantly it was about 30 million dollars less than octopussy
when you consider worldwide sales so they did decide at this point that they were going to
recast the part and i really think it was time roger moore as good as he was as james bond and
i really do think that he was amazing as james blonde and he's probably my nostalgic favorite
really needed to step down at this point and they made the right choice they opened the door
for a whole new era in james bond movies which we're gonna get into on our next installment but
it wasn't as easy a transition as some may have thought until next time this is a view to a kill
which gets about a double o six on ten i like this movie i don't hate it like other people do
but i must admit it's not one of the best james bond movies ever see you next time with the living
daylights
mole
you