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Released: May 1985
Producer: Albert R Broccoli and Michael G Wilson
Director: John Glen
Written by: Richard Maibaum and Michael G Wilson
Plot:
A trail of mysterious microchips puts Bond on the case of Max Zorin, a wealthy industrialist with a penchant for horse doping and megalomania. From Paris to San Francisco, Bond survives a number of Zorin and his henchwoman May Day’s attempts to kill him; eventually uncovering Zorin’s plot to trigger the San Andreas fault so it floods Silicon Valley and then… profit? There’s also a blimp.
Famous For:
Roger Moore’s final turn as 007
Christopher Walken being Christopher Walken
Grace Jones hoisting the film up and walking away with it
THAT BANGING DURAN DURAN THEME SONG WITH CHEESY FILM CLIP
Settling down to watch A View to a Kill for the first time in many years, I was struck by the realisation that I had no idea what the pre-credit sequence entailed.
Normally there’s some flash of recognition, even with the 80s Bond films that are generally the ones I revisit the least, but as the action began amidst a white-out, I was startled by the fact that here was a snow/ski sequence that had slipped my mind.
To the filmmakers’ credit, it was actually quite tense! Bond retrieves a microchip from the frozen body of a fellow spy, only to be pursued through the Siberian tundra by Soviet soldiers. He skis solidly on two skis, then on one ski, then briefly jumps on a snowmobile before it’s shot up by a random helicopter and blasted into pieces.
Plunged to the ground and seeking an escape, Bond grabs one of the sled’s skis and… snowboards his way to victory.
Now the Bond films are never above showing off new trends, and a bit of snowboarding certainly mixes up the relatively ubiquitous Bond ski sequence.
But in a decision that seems to indicate not all of that fresh powder was snow, the filmmakers decided to soundtrack the moment with… a cover version of the Beach Boys’ California Girls.
Before I even realised I was speaking aloud, I yelled “Oh you did NOT just do that!” at the screen.
Of course, the Roger Moore Bond movies had used musical homages before: notably Lawrence of Arabia in The Spy Who Loved Me and The Magnificent Seven in Moonraker. But those were classical, instrumental pieces, not pop songs from two decades earlier. It would be like the Tyrannosaurus Rex making its first appearance in Jurassic Park to the tune of Nutbush City Limits.
“I SAID TWENTY-FIVE IS THE SPEED LIMIT!”
Perhaps it was funny in 1985?
As it stands, that moment sets the tone for the movie as a whole: it hasn’t aged well.
Speaking of which, let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: yes, Roger Moore was 58 when this film came out. He later admitted he was too old for the role, but having won The Battle of the Bonds with Octopussy, he was roped into one last rodeo. At least in this one he wouldn’t have to wear clown makeup - just seven layers of foundation and Spakfilla to try to blur out the wrinkles.
And look, this is not to be ageist. Roger Moore looks great for 58.
Frankly, I would be fine with Roger Moore playing James Bond until he keeled over from cirrhosis or syphilis, whichever hit him first, but the plausibility gap was getting too difficult to ignore. His Bond was still sleeping with 30-year-old women (or younger), and still carrying off crazy physical feats like a 30-year-old man.
Bless the internet: somebody put together screen shots of all the moments you can see Roger Moore’s stunt doubles.
Roger Moore was apparently embarrassed to discover that not only was he older than his leading lady Tanya Roberts, he also had a few years on her mother.
You either have to acknowledge that Bond is ageing, and have some consequences for that (which strangely enough is what Never Say Never Again tried to do, given the return of Sean Connery), or you need to take your lumps and recast.
Still, what’s done is done, and while Roger Moore’s final outing in the tuxedo isn’t necessarily a great film, it’s certainly a distinctive one.
Taking its title from the Ian Fleming short story From a View to a Kill, longtime writer Richard Maibaum and Broccoli stepson/producer/man of all trades Michael G. Wilson concocted the franchise’s first tech billionaire villain, Max Zorin.
Having defected from East Germany with a rather murky background (cough *Nazi experiments* cough), Zorin has become a leading industrialist who supplies Britain with microchips specially designed to withstand electromagnetic pulses. But then, Bond’s Siberian sojourn turns up Soviet microchips with the same properties, and 007 is tasked with finding out Zorin’s deal.
Christopher Walken was possibly the most well-known film star to play a Bond baddie at this point in the franchise.
As an interesting side-note, the role had been accepted and then rejected by David Bowie, who clearly thought the role of a power-hungry, platinum-blond, dick-swinging villain was beneath him.
Just one year later…
I find it difficult to make a definitive assessment of Walken’s performance, as I’m not familiar enough with his work before he became best known not as Christopher Walken, actor, but as Christopher Walken, character.
I certainly think there is an argument to be made that his performance seems disconnected, even sneering at times. But is that actually good acting for this strange Nazi science baby turned KGB agent turned self-aggrandising capitalist megalomaniac? I mean, they probably would be a bit disconnected from reality, right?
The famous Christopher Walken cadence is also on display in this film, such as when he meets Bond, in disguise as potential horse buyer James St John-Smythe, at Zorin’s posh French estate and horse sale.
What he does have is a great henchwoman in the form of Grace Jones as May Day. A Jamaican-American powerhouse whose creative career spanned modelling, music and movies, Jones’ incredible physique and physicality stands her out in what is otherwise the whitest of all the Moore Bonds - particularly when leading lady Tanya Roberts as Stacey Sutton is unfortunately a tad bland.
“This is only my first drink and I’ve already forgotten your name.”
The film does establish an intriguing relationship between May Day and Zorin, her boss/partner/lover. While Bond breaks into a secret laboratory on the French estate and discovers proof Zorin’s German doctor friend has been turning his steeds into equine Lance Armstrongs, May Day is training Zorin in hand-to-hand combat.
Zorin is in a full gi, while May Day is in the highest-cut of all high-cut one-pieces.
At one point Zorin overpowers May Day and holds her down, attempting to kiss her. There’s a moment where she gives him a look of revulsion before he ickily plants his face on hers. In a way it foreshadows how May Day will eventually save the day - when Zorin abandons her in his mine and she realises he’d been using her all along. Sadly, not more is done with what seemed to be an interdependent relationship, or at the very least one with a degree of mutual respect.
Still, May Day is a great heavy, as evidenced by her treatment of a KGB goon who insults Zorin during a confrontation with longtime KGB head General Gogol, who’s trying to bring his rogue agent back in line. The scene is also notable for the cameo by future action star Dolph Lundgren, whom Grace Jones was dating at the time.
Also worthy of note is the “This Feels Very Obligatory” sex scene between Bond and May Day, where for the only time in his 12 years as James Bond does Roger Moore looks highly uncomfortable in bed with a woman.
Bond’s first encounter with May Day is when she murders the French detective “Achille Aubergine”, a hilarious-but-not-really play on Hercule Poirot during his lunch with Bond at the Eiffel Tower.
Bond’s pursuit of her up the Tower (which she baselines off), across the city in a cab and finally jumping onto a boat in the Seine, is probably the most memorable and fun action sequence in the film.
Most of the others feel laboured.
There’s a somewhat pointless steeple chase at the Chateau where Zorin cheats and raises the jumps behind him. He’s bet Bond that he will give him his best drugged-up pony should Bond stick the course, but it’s all a ruse to capture Bond.
Upon seeing that May Day has already killed his friend Tibbett (which was sad, Patrick McNee was wonderfully charming in the role of a horse trainer turned spy sidekick), they knock Bond out and then dump the car containing both bodies in a nearby lake.
This establishes a pattern of Zorin and May Day being really, really bad at killing Bond. Yes, they probably wanted to make it look like an accident, but also, it’s Zorin’s estate, and he clearly doesn’t think the rule of law applies to him. Why does he go to the trouble?
Of course, Bond survives by breathing air from the Rolls Royce’s Michelin tyres, because only Michelin tyres have that real “escape from death” quality.
He’s plucking tyres from his abdomen but not losing bodily integrity. I’m traumatised.
There’s an overly complex sub-plot involving KGB spies trying to sabotage Zorin’s water pumps, which conveniently covers Bond’s snooping about at the same time. The male KGB spy is dispatched by Zorin (he has no trouble killing that guy), but Bond realises the female KGB agent is an old foe/fuckbuddy Pola Ivanova. Treating themselves to a Japanese spa recovery, the pair have bubbly spa sex before Bond does a switcheroo and steals her tape of Zorin’s plans about Operation “Mainstrike”.
In a hat tip to The Spy Who Loved Me, the Pola character was supposed to be Major Anya Amasova, but while I’m glad Barbara Bach turned them down, it would have made more sense if she was there. Instead it feels like a plot contrivance to get Bond another notch on his belt, as if throwing waves of pliant women at him would distract from the whole “being 58” thing.
I mean, how likely are these even Roger Moore’s real legs?
There’s a ridiculous scene where the pair trap Bond and Stacey in a burning lift in San Francisco City Hall as part of a convoluted plan to set Bond up as the killer of the Mayor, whom Zorin has just shot in cold blood.
It gets even sillier, with Bond fireman lifting Stacey out of the burning building only to lift a firetruck when the police threaten them with arrest.
Maybe it was a salute to Steve McQueen’s famous San Francisco street chase in Bullitt; or maybe even to the Keystone Cops of old. Either way, imitation is no form of flattery with this sequence:
Zorin’s finest moment - whether as the actual character of Zorin or just Christopher Walken having a fun time for cash, it possibly doesn’t matter - is his address to a bunch of fellow silicon chip goons onboard his blimp HQ.
It’s his Auric Goldfinger moment, complete with the reveal of a LARGE 3D EVIL PLAN DESK MAP. Zorin explains his fiendish idea to destroy Silicon Valley to monopolise the microchip industry and Oh God it’s so BORING compared to nuking Fort Knox.
Of course, aside from the excellent dumping of an unwilling accomplice on the trick stairs/slide (also note May Day’s sunglasses blooper), the scene doesn’t really mean anything. It’s there because it’s a Bond film, and you’re supposed to have your villain explain his plan at some point.
But none of those accomplices seem to figure in the eventual climax point to the action, which takes place at Zorin’s mine near the San Andreas fault.
It’s a bloated mess, and involves Zorin and his numbers man Scarpine (Belgian actor Patrick Bachau) not only blowing up hundreds of miners who think they’ve been working on a legitimate construction project, but machine gunning any survivors.
I mean, sure, the guy’s a psycho, but surely the explosion was enough on that front? Having Zorin and Scarpine set off the bomb then get the hell out would suffice. Years later, Roger Moore would even comment that he didn’t think that much gunfire and slaughter was in the Bond tradition.
Still, the betrayal of May Day gives Grace Jones enough impetus to do a face turn and ally with Bond and Stacey instead of chasing them. And it’s a good thing to, because it’s May Day who saves the day.
With time running out, the pair need to get the main bomb out of the mine, where it will trigger thousands of kilograms of explosives and crack open the faultline. Only May Day has the strength to winch both Bond and the bomb to the surface.
To ensure its destruction outdoors in relative safety, May Day goes full Dr Strangelove and rides that sucker to doomsday.
It’s kinda sad that May Day, in finding her liberty from Zorin, immediately sacrifices herself for another man. But I don’t mind that she gets a hero moment, even if it does mean death.
Also, it is a James Bond movie, and James Bond can hardly die, particularly when he’s due for an incredibly silly final battle with Scarpine and Zorin on the blimp, at the Golden Gate Bridge.
This is before Walken learned to fly for that Weapons of Choice music video.
Bond is reported missing, but of course he’s not, he’s just with Stacey Sutton at her place, and she’s so bland she scrambles all tracking devices. Except for Q’s new experimental K9:
So that’s it, Roger Moore’s swan song, in all of its messy and overstuffed glory.
I didn’t hate this film as I expected to, and I think the casting of Grace Jones was a stroke of genius - even if Moore would later say he found her “difficult” to work with on set, which probably just means that she was a badass who didn’t give a f*#& about his ego.
Christopher Walken too would spark the franchise’s interest in casting more well known film actors in the villain roles, knowing how much that could draw audiences. Indeed, A View to a Kill made $152 million at the global box office, and recorded the franchise’s biggest opening weekend in the US and Canada to date. So there was still life in the series, even if it wasn’t at Moonraker levels.
But it was the end for Roger Moore, and for Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny too, who thankfully got a little bit more to do in this film, attending the races with Bond, M, Q and Sir Godfrey Tibbett.
But as we close this chapter, I want to end with possibly the best thing that A View to a Kill gave the world: the Duran Duran theme song.
The story goes that bassist John Taylor drunkenly bailed up Cubby Broccoli at a party and said “When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs?”
One of the most popular bands of the 80s, Duran Duran came through, working with Bond composer John Barry to create this punchy new wave pop moment with fantastically visual lyrics: “Until we dance into the fire/ that fatal kiss is all we need.” They even created a music video to match:
Bond songs had been known to chart, of course, but the smash hit success of A View to a Kill was something else: it reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.
Now, Bond films always employ current pop sensations to create original songs that stand alone, and most importantly, can be nominated for the Oscars. From Norwegian pop outfit a-ha in the very next film The Living Daylights, to Tina Turner, Garbage, Madonna, and Adele, doing a Bond theme is generally always now the domain of “someone decent”.
WITH NOTABLE. EFFING. EXCEPTIONS.
But there’s plenty of time for that.
First, we’ve got a new Bond to discover!
Thank you for reading this instalment of the James Bond Retrospective! If you enjoyed it, you can sign up to support the series and my other writing/podcasting efforts via my Patreon page. Thanks to all of you who are already members; your support is truly invaluable. You can listen to the companion Raven Bond A View to a Kill podcast here:
Stu and I have are also ranking the Bond films as we watch and podcast about them. Here’s how we stand:
Join us next time as we welcome Timothy Dalton to the 007 role in The Living Daylights!