A View to a Kill

James Bond sets out to stop a psychopathic business man and a successful horse breeder. Stars Roger Moore and Christopher Walken.

Moore was clearly too old for this role but the film has all the elements of a great Bond film. An excellent villain in Walken, a dastardly plot, beautiful girls and amazing locations.

A lot of fun. Grace Jones is a great henchman.

A View To A Kill commonly comes under as one of Roger Moore's weakest Bond films, however in my opinion, that is completely wrong. It is one of the most best of his films. The action is stronger than many previous films, the music is good and the locations such as France and San Francisco. Roger Moore is great as a Bond actor, especially down to the fact he is 57. Christopher Walken makes a fantastic and one of the very best villains. Overall, there are some bits which are a bit slow, but lots of it is exciting, strong and thrilling.

"A View To A Kill" usually gets a lot of flak, but criticizing a larger-than-life action flick (as James Bond usually is) is like criticizing a hamburger, or any other mass product. It's no Mona Lisa and it's not meant to be. And to be honest, even the Mona Lisa is not the masterpiece it's made to be. -)

OK, so there are serious considerations about the film. And it's not so much that Roger Moore looks old, but rather that he *acts* old. Gone is the exuberance and youthful spirit of previous Moore Bonds. Moore seems tired and unenthusiastic, as if going through the motions, as if he doesn't care anymore. He doesn't convince.

Pace-wise, there's a serious flat spot early on and it lasts for a long time. It simply is boring from the moment Bond enters the Zorin residence trying to find out about any wrongdoings and about until Tanya Roberts enters the frame. It's not helped by the plot either: ex KGB agent/ specimen turned microchip businessman trying to take over the market by blowing up Silicon Valley. It could be better, much better.

What literally saves the film is the two stunning action sequences in the second half. First we got Moore and Roberts' narrow escape, leading to one of the best Bond car-chases ever. In a fire-truck of all vehicles! With Moore hanging from the extending ladder!! And then the spectacular Golden Gate Bridge sequence, brilliantly directed - is it a first for John Glen?

So, among the best Bonds this is not, but a nice farewell from Mr. Moore all the same.

I can say I am a Bond fan, seeing as I own twenty of the twenty-two movies currently on DVD (as of writing this review). So far the only film I haven't enjoyed in the series has been Roger Moore's Moonraker, just because of the over the top silliness and the obvious sell-out to appeal to moviegoers who had just seen Star Wars.

Upon seeing 'A View to a Kill' I instantly was prepared for the worst, and let me tell you this certainly is a bad Bond film. Moore is showing his obvious age, making the relations with his leading ladies undeniably awkward, to say the least. The plot is as simple as they come, and none of the actors are really given any chance with the dialogue they have been given. Moore has very few witty comments in this movie, and most of the other characters are cardboard cut outs.

One thing however manages to make this film better than Moonraker. This is the under-appreciated role of Max Zorin, played by the always wonderful Christopher Walken. I can say without a doubt in my mind that Walken is the single saving grace in this film, exhibiting everything any good Bond villain needs.

Exotic locations: Check! Unique henchmen/henchwoman: Check! Surrounded by beautiful girls: Check Cold and ruthless attitude: Double check! Heartless and chilling disregard for henchmen life: CHECK Walken, with a horrid script (every character in this movie is poorly written) is able to create one of the best Bond villains I've ever seen! The way he talks, the way he acts, everything he does showcases his undeniable talent. So for a movie like 'A View to a Kill' Walken's performance is like shifting through sewage and finding a large diamond ring.

It is because of Walken that I recommend this movie and give it a relatively good rating. Everything else about this film is really forgettable. You'd think a super-strong female henchwoman would make for a memorable moment in the franchise, but this is so poorly handled that she winds up as one of the most forgettable characters in the series, as opposed to one of the best.

Roger Moore, unfortunately, ends his career on Bond in perhaps his own worst performance, which is undeniably sad. It seems that all Bond actors seem to end their careers on the lowest of their films (Connery with 'Diamonds are Forever', Brosnan with 'Die Another Day', and though Dalton was a great Bond, I have to say 'License to Kill' was a weak film) but with those films it has always been more the scripts fault, as opposed to the actor's talent (all three tried their best with the material). Moore is just plain stiff in his last entry! The man seems to have totally lost interest in playing the character by this point.

I consider 1979's 'Moonraker' Moore's worst, but like 'Diamonds are Forever', and 'Die Another Day', Moonraker was more the fault of the script writers; not the Bond actor. In 'A View to a Kill' Moore really shows that he is no longer capable of playing the part, and that is the saddest part of the film (especially seeing Moore seducing girls much younger than himself, with his developing turkey neck becoming quite obvious). Walken makes the movie an enjoyable, B-grade action movie, but as for Bond, this is where it becomes an undeniable fact that Moore has overstayed his welcome as Agent 007.

Moore deserved a better ending, and the fact is that he just shouldn't have come back for this film. Octopussy may have actually been a decent departure, but Moore decided to try one last time and it really is the straw that breaks the Moore Bond's back. Enough was enough, and Moore failed to recognize when he should have cried "when!" I give this film a decent rating for the performance of Christopher Walken, but everything else is very low, and forgettable. Go and see it for Walken, but it is sad to see Moore's finally desperate breaths as he tries to keep the character going one last time.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently.

This is the fourteenth in the Bond series and the final appearance of Roger Moore as James Bond.

In this movie Bond has to deal with a villain Zorin, who is planning to blow up Silicon Valley. (I think he is fed up with the geeks n nerds).

Apart from Zorin none of the henchmen are noteworthy.

This one's a bit violent

The main villain Zorin, a sadistic psychopath (played smoothly by Christopher Walken) displays a near-total lack of loyalty to his own men n shoots hundreds of people with machine guns n that too with a smile.

A man gets minced in an underwater exhaust fan.

In this movie Bond does an amazing horse hurdle race.

It has a lovely pre credit scene of that of a breathtaking ski chase.

It has a spectacular chase up and down the Eiffel Tower which must have inspired the parkour chase sequence in Casino Royale.

The climactic fight scene on Golden Gate Bridge is very well done.

This movie is Dolph Lundgren's first on-screen role, playing General Gogol's KGB bodyguard Venz but without any dialogues.

He is present before the iconic dialogue, "No one ever leaves the KGB".

In this movie Bond gets to cool off with Mary Stavin, Fiona Fullerton, Tanya Roberts n Grace Jones (A true Amazonian female n better than the fake Gal Gadot. Grace Jones was the first sexually aggressive Bond girl, evidenced by her reversal of positions - she climbed on top).

Many fellas say that Muad Adams is present in the movie as an extra n uncredited of that of a passerby. I tried but didn't notice her.

Some info on Zorin: Max Zorin is a sharp businessman, operating on the microchip market. He is highly intelligent n acts very fast cos he is the product of a Nazi medical experimentation during World War II, in which pregnant women were injected with massive quantities of steroids in an attempt to create "super-children." Most of the pregnancies failed while the few surviving babies grew to become extraordinarily intelligent-but also psychopathic.

After the war, Hans Glaub aka Carl Mortner, the German scientist who conducted the experiments, raised a young Zorin. Zorin was later trained by KGB agents.