As mentioned many times by many people - including the man himself - Roger Moore was too old to be playing Bond anymore. But let's not lie by saying that his age is the problem with this movie. He's still as charming as ever and his age is only an issue when he's climbing into bed with much younger women. For the most part though, those trysts make sense. The one that doesn't is Stacey Sutton, but except for a tacked-on, last minute dalliance in the shower, their relationship is mostly chaste, so even that's not distractingly creepy for most of the movie.
The problem with A View to a Kill is the story, as we looked at yesterday. Since there is no one, central mystery to solve, Bond's not able to succeed through detective work. The script forces him to rely entirely on hunches. He looks into the horse steroids on a hunch. Then, when that leads nowhere, he goes to San Francisco on a hunch. While there, he hears about problems with some missing crabs, so he investigates Zorin's oil wells on another hunch. He has to get his details about Zorin's most sinister scheme from the Soviets, and he meets Stacey - the final piece of his puzzle - quite by accident at City Hall when he goes to visit the Department of Oils and Mines for some reason. Probably a hunch.
It's sad that Bond can't do his job through honest problem-solving, because it's not for lack of trying. He goes undercover twice in the movie, which has to be hard for him, because that never works out well for Bond. I mean, one of his aliases is James Stock. I had to chuckle when he tells Sir Godfrey that "a successful cover becomes almost second nature." Like he would know.
Speaking of Sir Godrey, it's a pleasure seeing Patrick Macnee in this movie. I've never seen The Avengers (something I have plans to fix soon), so I mostly know him from View to a Kill and guest appearances on '70s TV shows like Battlestar Galactica. But even if you don't get the spy reference, he's still a fun character and a pleasant companion for Bond during the rambling horse investigation. That part of the movie is always better when he's on screen.
Once Bond gets to San Francisco, his main ally becomes Jack Lee of the CIA. Rumor has it that the screenwriters considered using Felix Leiter for that role, but opted for a Chinese American agent since Chinatown is such a well-known part of San Francisco. Good for them. The character probably wouldn't have been as memorable had he been yet another Felix.
General Gogol is back. He's sort of an adversary in that the initial microchip that got Bond involved had been stolen from the British and ended up with the Soviets. But Zorin refuses to play nice with the KGB and gets on Gogol's bad side, so there's another alliance between the KGB and MI6 as they both work against Zorin.
Speaking of MI6, everyone's very professional during Bond's briefing. Except maybe for Q, who will keep playing with that robot. Bond is attentive and serious, so M and the Minister of Defense don't have anything to get upset about. I guess that Robert Brown's M is having a positive effect on Bond in that regard. He seems neither easily riled nor willing to put up with any crap from Bond. I imagine that if Bond played the fool, this M wouldn't just gripe. Discipline would probably be swift and stern.
I wish I had a good, in-story explanation for why M sends in Q's robot to check on Bond at the end of the movie. They make a big deal of not knowing if Bond is dead or alive, but instead of sending an agent around to Stacey's house, they sneak that robot in. It makes no more sense than Stacey's wanting to take a shower with Bond.
Finally, we need to talk about Moneypenny, especially since this is Lois Maxwell's last performance in the role. She's also the last remaining cast member who'd been around since Dr. No. There's no flirting this time, just some friendly ribbing, but we're used to that by this point. I enjoyed her relationship with Bond, which wasn't nearly as one-sided (most of the time) as legend has it. That more-or-less platonic relationship with a woman is something that I miss about the rest of the series. At least until Skyfall anyway.
Best Quip
"I'm trying not to think about it," in answer to Stacey's question, "Do you know what I'm sitting on?"
Worst Quip
"There's a fly in his soup," after his dinner companion is murdered with a butterfly-shaped fishing lure.
Gadgets
The best piece of tech in the movie is the iceberg boat that extracts Bond from Siberia. I love its camouflage, I love it's Union Jack hatch cover, and I love its swanky interior.
But while Bond doesn't have anything else that cool in the movie, he certainly makes up for it in quantity. View has to hold the record for most gadgets in a film so far, especially the personal kind. He uses a bug-sweeping device disguised as an electric razor, polarizing sunglasses, a reader that makes impressions of the last check someone wrote, a camera ring, and a credit card (from Sharper Image, naturally) that opens locks electronically.
Looking at how my Top Ten list is shaping up for gadgets, I wonder if I shouldn't have made two separate lists to differentiate between vehicles and personal items, because the vehicles are definitely taking over. But nah. The vehicles are just way cooler. It's still a fair list.
Top Ten Gadgets
1. Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me)
2. Aston Martin DB V (Goldfinger and Thunderball)
3. Jet pack (Thunderball)
4. Iceberg boat (A View to a Kill)
5. Glastron CV23HT speed boat (Moonraker)
6. Acrostar Mini Jet (Octopussy)
7. Crocodile submarine (Octopussy)
8. Little Nellie (You Only Live Twice)
9. Rocket cigarettes (You Only Live Twice)
10. Ski pole rocket (The Spy Who Loved Me)
Bond's Best Outfit
Love a leather jacket.
Bond's Worst Outfit
Still don't like brown suits.
2 comments:
Before we go anywhere serious, I’d like to point out that ‘Achille Aubergine’ (Who so very nearly became Bond’s ally in this film) is so transparently a pastiche of Hercule Poirot - presumably of the Peter Ustinov version in particular - that I was wondering if he might be a Whole Character Reference to the Greatest Belgian who never actually was before his classic first name made it quite explicit.
Now we can all wonder what sort of adventures a ‘Nothing To Sue Here’ version of Poirot might get up to on Earth-007 before the spotlight hit him.
- Incidentally, I wonder if Aubergine and Sir Godfrey would have been conflated into a single character had Eon owned to rights to CASINO ROYALE in the 1980s (As one Rene Mathis, whose absence in a film set on French territory is otherwise quite difficult to understand).
- Getting into the established characters, it’s a pity that General Gogol’s swansong isn’t better integrated into the plot: a more lucid version of this script might have used him as the stresser driving MAIN STRIKE (Zorin whips up the plan and puts it into action so that Gogol cannot burn him and possibly so that the KGB is too busy coping with Western retaliations that either they nor their enemies can focus on the actual terrorist).
- Also, whilst Mr Dolph Lundgren was quite literally brand new to the acting game (He was pulled in as Gogol’s close protection because he was acting as Grace Jone’s bodyguard) I enjoy his popping up because it’s amusing to see it made clear that Zorin’s brood aren’t the only superhumans and might not even be the Best (Also, it’s fun to imagine his character becoming a Soviet X-Agent in the vein of Triple X and having at least one duel of wits with 007, whether before or after the collapse of the USSR).
It’s also amusingly-easy to see him and the late Eric the East German as proof that - when it comes to recruiting muscle - General Gogol has a type.
- Poor Robert Brown: while the late, great Bernard Lee was The Original and Definitive M, the great Dame Judi Dench was the ‘Evil Queen of Numbers’ and Young Bond’s beloved ‘Ma’am’ (It might be interesting to consider the differences between the two incarnations of her M), whilst even Mr Ralph Fiennes gets to be a good man in a bad job, the former Admiral Hargreaves (I absolutely buy into the theory that the Lee M and the Brown M are separate, albeit very similar men) mostly gets lost in the shuffle.
It’s a pity: there’s a niche for him as the sensible, businesslike M (For all that we love Dame Judi and Mr Fiennes, their characters absolutely **** up royally at points in the Craig Era) and LICENCE TO KILL left open the possibility for a story where the new M and Bond learn (or relearn) new trust and respect for each other.
Still, at least 007 remembers his cognac fondly.
- Incidentally, whilst I enjoy the Michael Kitchen Bill Tanner, classic Bond missed a trick by not promoting Miss Moneypenny to M’s chief of staff when Dame Judi swept in (Heck, it would have been nice to see Lois Maxwell as M’s acting chief of staff as a farewell present to her - let her handle at least part of Bond’s briefing).
- I’m not going to lie, given that Ms Fiona Fullerton and Mr Robbie Coltrane were Scots playing Russians, it’s amusing to imagine Pola Ivanova as the girlfriend whom Bond casually walked off with after popping Valentin Dmitrovich Zhukovsky’s knee (I believe it would be standard practice for Russian ballet troupes to have a KGB minder whilst performing in the West and Valentin Dmitrovich did have an eye for the ladies).
I wonder if Pola Ivanova and Major Amasova ever compared notes on 007? (I’d bet Pola Ivanova would be up for it, but that Triple X would not be so keen).
You know, my remark about General Gogol having a type was meant purely as a joke, but given that his secretary, his mistress (These are, I believe one and the same but I’m not entirely sure) and at least four of his past and present agents (Eric from FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, Max Zorin before the events of A VIEW TO A KILL and Pola Ivanova, also the General’s close protection man played by Dolph Lundgren) are magnificent blondes, I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t ’kidding on the square.’
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