Roger Moore bows out as James Bond 007, in A View To A Kill.
It’s a film with a few problems…
This ones an unworthy last hurrah for Sir Rog.
Yet such is life.
Received wisdom is a terrible thing.
But occasionally it has a point.
The Villain:To waste one great villain on a rubbish film may be classed as unfortunate.
To waste a second is damned careless.
Zorin is fresh, vibrant, energetic the inverse of the film he terrorises.
Hes played by a Hollywood legend in his prime: good for the character, bad for the film.
Christopher Walken just looks evil.
Fine-boned and wild-eyed, he probably emerged from the womb in a whiff of sulphur.
Sanity and platinum blond hair rarely coincide.
The Girl:James!
Help me, James!!!
Dont leave me, James!!!
Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaames!!!!
James, where are you???!!!
Remember that party fromLive And Let Die?
Its still going on, and Rogers still there.
Time to go home, Roger.
It was time to go home two hours ago.
And then he left hastily, as befits a man of his years.
Youve been here all night, Roger!
We loved having you but the partys over.
The magic tricks dont work anymore.
You keep dropping the deck.
And still Roger ploughs on.
Dancing on tables in once-shiny shoes.
He tells long-winded jokes only to forget the punchline.
He tries the limbo and nearly puts out his back.
Dalton watches from the corner.
The plot, then.
Freshly returned from India, Bond is dispatched to Siberia for the pre-credits.
The obligatory blonde awaits in the obligatory fake-iceberg.
(Why is Bond never paired with a monosyllabic Slav named Gert?)
Good luck, 007.
No little blue pills in 1985; hope youve been eating your greens.
Nope, pass pre-credits sequence as far as Im concerned.
And the credits themselves are turbocharged by that thrilling Duran Duran number, a perpetual contender for series best.
Certainly no song boasts a more exciting opening: Bam!
Bam ba bam…!
Note the subtle distinctions from the Duns of the 007 Theme.
This may be the Moores last sigh as 007 but his isnt the only notable departure.
Lois Maxwell, veteran of 14 Bond films (exactly double Roger), has typed her last memo.
She barely featured in these retrospectives, save for a brief paragraph way back inDr.
No, where I warned she wouldnt feature very much.
Thus the fate of minor recurring characters.
I imagine her ghost will cope.
In truth, Lois stayed behind the desk too long.
Her exchanges with Moore dwindle to the stuff of the Bingo Hall.
Moneypenny is the least significant of the MI6 staff.
M sets the mission, and thus the plot; Q provides gadgets and vehicles.
Perhaps the character should have retired with Maxwell.
Her initial absence from the Craig reboots hardly registered.
Although her appearance inSkyfall…well, all in good time.
We whisk over to Paris for a totally pointless interlude.
But then Bond gives pursuit.
At least the French jolly isnt a complete waste of air miles.
The sleazy detective divulges Zorins country horse sale before he is butterflied to death by Mayday.
So, armed with priceless information he could probably have read inTatler, Bond slinks back to Blighty.
Then I decided banter is historically a sound word and, if used in the right context e.g.
nowhere near the term lad banter can remain a sound word.
So I reclaimed it.
#Bringingbackthebanter)
The real joke is MacneesAvengersbackground as Bond-a-like Sir John Steed.
The series had already purloined two former Steed girls in Honor Blackman and Diana Rigg.
Making Steed himself wash Bonds Rolls Royce was the ultimate assertion of superiority, albeit a playful one.
Pulling the trick with Timothy Dalton wouldnt quite work.
The fingers crossed approach to espionage.
Sadly this optimism is ill-founded; Zorin owns a computer that provides Bonds name, number and killing licence.
Maybe Zorin got his details from the maker of Scaramangas uncanny Bond waxwork.
A rather surreal scene ensues.
Having discovered his foes true identity, Zorin opts against instant arrest and/or torture.
Instead he decides to take Bond steeplechasing.
Because Connery got to ride a horse, so Roger should too.
I wonder: were the jumps always booby-trapped for just this sort of occasion?
Or did a construction team get to work very, very quickly?
Tibbett turns up dead.
Hes strangled by Mayday from the backseat of the Rolls.
Her concealment isnt exactly covert: she sneaks inside whilst Tibbett goes to fire up the front gate.
Where could she have vanished?
How mortifying if Godfrey peeked through the rear window and saw Mayday crouched on the floor.
Funny one, Mayday.
She is set up as an Amazonian Jaws, silently taking out half the cast.
Her bedding of Moore feels contrived: she woman, he Bond, it must occur.
I wish her relationship with Zorin a willing one, unusually were properly explored.
I wish he didnt randomly betray her.
She deserved more than she was given.
Why shoot a man when you could watch him drown?
Or at least, watch the surface of a lake and imagine him drowning underneath.
Clearly Zorin has a lot of spare time.
Onto San Francisco, where Bond gate-crashes a Soviet surveillance job at Zorins oil rig.
It is astounding how frequently rival spies bump into each other.
Even better it turns out Bond romanced her in the past!
That saves about thirty seconds of flirting.
Into the Jacuzzi with you.
Some might view Pola as another sign that nobody could really be arsed.
Her history with Bond certainly cuts a few corners.
Yet perhaps Pola represents a brave stab at verisimilitude?
It should be cause for comment if Bond meets a female spy he hasnt previously bedded.
Goodnight, Anya, Holly, multiple pre-credits blondes: no wonder the old boy starts repeating himself.
Anyway, Pola steals the wrong cassette tape and exits apartment and film.
Shes done her bit: a notch on the Bond bedpost and ten minutes killed.
The action heats up as Bond visits San Francisco City Hall.
Nothing like municipal bureaucracy to get the thrill juice flowing.
Posing as aFinancial Timesreporter, Bond spars with city official W.G.
Howe on the mechanics of oil pipelines.
Stacy Sutton materialises and Bond decides to follow her home.
He previously encountered Stacy at Zorins country pad.
There she was cool, enigmatic.
Never trust first impressions.
The alliteration rings true.
Plenty of S words describe Stacy.
Shrill, shrieking, stupefyingly senseless.
Tanya Roberts does a fine job of imbuing numerous screams of James!
with subtly different inflections.
Sometimes she adds an Oh James!
for the sake of variety.
At one point excitement takes hold and James!
Occasionally she gets flustered and just goes Aaaah!
Bond is kept busy at the Sutton residence.
He fights off some heavies, fixes the electricity and rustles up a quiche.
Keep your eyes peeled in Tesco and I bet youd spot Timothy slinking toward the lasagne aisle).
Is the quiche a clever piece of wordplay on the Moore era: kitsch?
Doubtful but Ill give the writers the benefit of it.
Very witty, chaps.
Unable to resist the pull of local governance, the film has Bond and Stacy revisit City Hall.
Stacy is promptly sacked.
CIA agent Chuck Lee comes round for a chat and a cuppa.
Lee exists solely to be killed off; that purpose is swiftly fulfilled.
Our heroes return at night and start rifling through filing cabinets.
Only Zorin and Mayday lie in wait at least I assume theyre lying in wait.
Perhaps they too love City Hall.
Perhaps this is date night.
Zorin shoots Howe and sets City Hall on fire.
Good move: Bond was one visit away from standing for office.
says Zorin cheerily, and shoots him.
Zorin is usually responsible for the rare moments of inspiration.
His shooting of Howe is a highlight.
To his credit the famously loopy Walken doesnt do a Berkoff and start wolfing down the scenery.
The casual Does anybody else want to drop out?
after a reluctant business associate is sent plummeting from the airship.
Zorins smile is wickedness incarnate.
Yet Moore and Walken fail to spark.
Blame age, partially: Walken is the only baddie noticeably younger than his Bond.
This isnt exactly a case of Roger Moore is 58, ha ha ha.
Blame Walken, if you wish, for being 42.
Moore required a contemporary, while Walkens lively performance demanded a youthful 007.
Moore has many virtues.
you could almost sniff the toasted crumpets.
His gameness can anchor the most absurd of concepts.
But Roger doesnt do gloss.
Even for big American stars, Christopher Walken and Grace Jones are particularly large, American and starry.
Against their glitz Moore feels diminished, shrunken.
Walken and Jones arent quite bigger than Bond but they are bigger than the Bond of Roger Moore.
I doubt Dalton would have fared much better.
Brosnan, with his Hollywood sheen, might have provided the requisite ballast.
After the tuk tuk, double-decker bus and moon buggy, how about a fire truck chase?
The chase works well as a set-piece, provided you dont question why its happening in the first place.
Surely Bond could spare thirty minutes to accompany the police downtown and make a quick phone call?
Then pour out a stiff brandy while the might of the Californian police force descend on Zorins mine.
Famously Moore hated the scene where Zorin machineguns the mine workers.
Still, I admit mowing down hordes of people hardly typifies the Moore era.
(Although tell that to poor Corinne Dufour and thoseMoonrakerdogs.)
Mayday turns good awfully quick.
Her act would be far more powerful if the film explored more of her and Zorins relationship.
They both like killing people and falling from architectural landmarks.
The rest is a mystery.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a massive tactical error by Zorin.
His arms will get tired.
Tall structures plus trailing rope could cause problems.
So Zorin flies Bond into the Golden Gate Bridge.
Nice one, Max.
One thing you shouldnt do and you go ahead and do it.
But then we all do things we shouldnt.
That crucial sense of fun is totally sapped.
My problem withGolden Gunis its squandered potential as much as the finished product.
And so farewell to the man who (officially) played James Bond more than anyone else.
That record, I suspect, will never be broken.
Moore joined a phenomenally successful series that seemed yoked to its original star.
He left a franchise.
Under Moore the number of Bond films doubled.
The age of the franchise doubled, from 11 to 23.
This was only inevitable in hindsight.
A Connery clone would have dropped the ball.
Another failed casting could have proved terminal.
So thank you, sir.
For ensuring James Bond exists in 2015.
They will be other Bonds.
But there will never be another you.
Its been an absolute blast.
Best Bit:Zorins cleverly executed killing of Howe.
Worst Bit:Any time Stacy shrieks JAMES!
And why doesnt he just ring on the doorbell?
