A View to a Kill on Prime Video — It’s Not Mutual
The final Roger Moore movie. It is a bitter sweet thing, watching this movie. Even after seven movies, including the absolutely terrible ‘For Your Eyes Only’, Moore continues to be my most favorite bond. Now that I have reached the end of his tenure, it’s clear that when I decide to watch bond movies, when I simply wish to ‘chill’, I will be re-watching Moore movies.
Such a wonderful actor.
Meanwhile, View To A Kill, is another standard issue Moore movie. Some light comedy, some silly plot by a maniacal Bond villain, hot women and some super cool stunts.
I also want to mention that, Moore looks just fine. I know I complained a lot about his age in For Your Eyes Only. Having enjoyed Octopussy and now, this, I can say with confidence that, it was the serious tone of For Your Eyes Only which made Moore appear too old. Here, he looks just as charming as he always has been.
Although, I wish they did not make Sheena to play one of the Bond girls. She looks, really, really young in that shower at the end, next to our ageing hero.
Another Ludicrous Plot
Thanks to summer in India, and the endless power cuts, I was unable to watch the View To A Kill on my big, 4K iMac. Had to settle to watching it on the MacBook Air. Despite the small screen experience, I felt like the movie was suitably fantastic with all of its, dumb, fun things.
What is the villain up to here? The plan is to flood ‘Silicon Valley’, so that, it cannot produce any more Silicon. Then, Zorin, who owns operations elsewhere, not damaged by the flooding, to become the only guy who can still make enough Silicon for the world, hence, gaining a monopoly.
Does this sound like the same plot as Goldfinger? Yes, it is! But then again, I have always believed that all bond movies, including the ultra boring Daniel Craig movies, are constantly remaking themselves. Similar to how the Indiana Jones movies are all interchangeable with their plot and McGuffin devices.
It was gold before, and now it’s silicon. Who cares? It’s a bond movie. I am just going to let logic take a back seat and enjoy it.
Complementing this maniacal scheme is Zorin, who is some kind of a super genius and one for the richest guys in the world. Now, how did he become so? Well, he was some sort of a scientific experiment that was successful in creating super genius babies!
What!!! I mean, why not. Sure.
What makes Zorin extra special is the casting. Everybody and anybody absolutely loves Christopher Walken, with his distinct mannerisms and talking style. The first time I saw Walken was in the BatKeaton movie, Batman from 1989. It was weird to see him all young and energetic in this movie. Walken does his usual extreme but also very cool hamming of all scenes.
At one point, Zorin, for whatever reason, shoots mine workers who are already destined to die from flooding. He just kills and kills and kills. And just laughs and enjoys it. It was like a video game character. To make it even more morbidly funny, his assistant is also doing the same thing.
It was bizarre for a Bond villain to act this way. I don’t know what they were going for with this scene.
Fantastic Supporting Cast
The bond movies have always had excellent supporting cast, and once again, they win big time with the casting this crazy henchwoman lady. We had resourceful villain girls before in this franchise before, but, nobody as powerful forceful like this woman.
She is built like a bull. In the climax, she has a change of heart, and single-handedly ends the plan by Zorin. James Bond is relegated to the side role this point. She is a villain but its hard not to like because of how her story ends.
The other Bond girl, from the jungle movie, Sheena, I am not sure why she is here. The plot, kind of needs her. I am glad they did not put her in a bikini or similar skimpy dress. I think, the bond producers had exhausted their female skin exposure quote in the previous movie, Octopussy.
And at last, I finally discovered the origin for the funny, bath tub scene from the first Austin Powers movie! It’s this movie, of all movies! I burst out laughing.
I got to watch Austin Powers after I finish my James Bond Marathon. The Austin Powers movies will be that much more funnier after this marathon.
Good Bye Lois MaxWell
This would be the last time we will get to see Lois MaxWell aka Money Penny. Modern viewers will of course, brand her interactions with James Bond as some kind of a workplace abuse.
The constant ‘double entendre’ chatter is ripe for easy accusations.
However, it was clear from the very first time we saw her, with Connery in Dr. No, Bond and she had a chemistry. She is aware that Bond would not do anything to her and MoneyPenny would limit herself to ‘dirty’ chat but nothing else. She genuinely seemed to care for Bond, and perhaps, in the Bond universe, she is the only non-romantic, non-sexual friend James Bond has.
The actress is amazing in these short scenes, and it’s too bad she has to go after being in all those bond movies, even as the actors changed.
Good Bye Roger Moore
Ah! The fun bond wont be on screen any more. I have written about so much about Moore, and how much I like him, in all these posts so far.
He is awesome man, and I will miss him not being James Bond. Perhaps, I will grow to enjoy For Your Eyes Only too, eventually.
Score
I am marathon watching the James Bond movies and I wish to rank them at the end. So, I came up with a numbering system. The scores for this one are here.
- Action and Stunts 9/9
- Coolness Cool 9/9
- Double Entendre and One Liners 9/9
- Hot Women 9/9
- Ludicrous Villainy, Cool Deaths and Traps 9/9
- Gadgets Man! 2/9
- General Awesomeness 9/9
- Boredom Factor 0/-9
Total : 56
Final Note
It has been fun ride, this movie, and it is the perfect and simple way to end the tenure of Roger Moore. Roger Moore movies never shook the bond franchise.
They simply did their formula without messing it up. Now, let’s see what happens with Timothy Dalton and his two hard core, grounded bond films.
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