A View to a Kill

Roger Moore's send-off as the longest-tenured James Bond is a bit of an underwhelming one, and probably should have come sooner. The movie certainly isn't terrible, and is better in a lot of ways than its predecessor. I've lost track of how many times Moore's Bond has gone skiing (it's like three or four), something which every Bond seems to do except Connery, strangely; but he does so in the opening sequence, killing his only victims until the very end, and of all five, he actually directly personally offs zero of them. It's a bit unusual how sometimes he'll destroy a small army by himself, and others he'll barely harm a fly. I wonder if it's a conscious decision on the part of the filmmakers to mix it up from film to film, because while movies often follow similar story structures to previous entries in the series, if he was always involved in the same amount of violence people might wonder what the point is.

This is also a high water mark for number of different girls slept with, pretty impressive for a 58 year old. The problem is that it's hard to believe he could pull it off, he doesn't so much romance them as just let them fall into his bed. Even Moore himself he either didn't have chemistry with or downright didn't like the two main women. And it took me this long but I finally got fed up with his constant boring witticisms. When he's infiltrating the villain's base with the girl, he points to a hiding spot on a vehicle and says "Why walk when you can ride." Does every god damn thing out of your mouth have to be a quip, dude? It's okay to talk like a normal person once in a while. I liked Christopher Walken as the antagonist, he's one of the more psychotic ones in the series and actually has something approaching an interesting background. He's pretty much the highlight of the movie, although his penchant for theatrical executions over definite ones is his downfall as usual. Not a bad movie, but again, not a great one.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran
Foreign locations: Siberia, France, California
Bond, James Bond: 32:05 (fake name), 1:12:10 (other fake name), 1:33:55, 1:34:30
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 4
Chases: 3
Kills: 5
Non-lethal takedowns: 5

Octopussy

Here's another Moore Bond film I didn't really appreciate, mostly because it seemed more concerned with making the audience chuckle than exciting them. It's sort of like Moonraker, but instead of an utterly absurd final act it's just pervasively silly almost the entire time. It's just hard for me to be interested when action sequences are played for laughs instead of any sense of tension or suspense. There's a part on a speeding train late in the movie which is decent, but otherwise it's a pretty goofy film. An early scene in India is less a chase than a personal challenge by the filmmakers to see how many clichés they could stuff into a single scene. Sword swallowers! Walking on hot coals! Juggling torches! I mean, at one point Bond is trying to escape some pursuers in a jungle and swings away from them on some vines, and the iconic Tarzan shout plays. Just for no reason. This movie is fucking stupid.

It does have some decent elements, though. The plot involving Fabergé eggs, nuclear weapons, East/West Berlin, and the tenuous truce between the USSR and the western world is one of the less terrible ones in Moore's tenure. Maud Adams, in a rare return for a Bond girl actress and I believe the only one to do so as a different character, has been treated relatively kindly by time in the nine years since The Man with the Golden Gun, and is still pretty good at it. And I mean, Jaws isn't in it. The main henchman is a big, mostly quiet Indian fellow, and pretty forgettable... but he isn't Jaws. The final action scenes are a mixed bag, the stuff with the circus people in the chateau is silly as usual, but the airplane sequence is fairly tense and an okay climax. It's a shame the movie is so silly, because otherwise it's really not bad.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "All Time High" by Rita Coolidge
Foreign locations: Latin America, India, Germany
Bond, James Bond: 31:20
Martini shaken, not stirred: 1:08:40 (Unspoken)
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 13 humans, 1 spider, plus explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 10

For Your Eyes Only

Among Moore's Bond movies, this is one of the more enjoyable to me, a little behind The Spy Who Loved Me. The girls are a little sketchy, with one seeming a little old and the other not quite the natural beauty you usually see in the role, but I ended up liking her when she turned out to be one of his more competent allies. This is also the only film in the series without the M character after Bernard Lee died, and the first time I noticed Moore looking a little too old for the part. He's older than Sean Connery, so casting him 11 years later in the same role was something of an odd decision. Bond shouldn't be a young buck, but he shouldn't look like he's visibly in his 50s at times either. Still though, the events was reasonable, there's actually something to the plot besides an elaborate scheme to take over/destroy the world, and the action wasn't bad.

Oh! Blofeld finally dies in this one. It's just the opening sequence and he's not identified by name or face but it's totally him and he doesn't actually die on screen but he probably did since he never reappeared in this continuity. Pretty ignominious end, but it was much a statement by the filmmakers as anything, as they were showing the guy who won the rights to the character after a legal battle that they didn't need his ass. Anyway, Bond does some skiing and SCUBA diving and mountain climbing, including some pretty tense scenes throughout before the final assault on the villain's hideout in a mountaintop monastery. It's one of the best end sequences yet, not because of big action or explosions but because it's an interesting setup in an interesting location. The movie is not without its flaws, but at the least it seemed like they were trying.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "For Your Eyes Only" by Sheena Easton
Foreign locations: Greece, Italy
Bond, James Bond: 28:25, 36:40
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 2
Chases: 2
Kills: 11
Non-lethal takedowns: 10

Moonraker

This marks the midpoint of this little project, so a brief status report: Um, it's going all right. The general level of quality is about what I expected. This right here is definitely one of the worst films of the lot, and a disappointing one for the longest tenured M to go out on. It starts out strongly enough as Bond goes to meet Drax, an insanely rich gentleman with his own space program, and there's some mild intrigue and subterfuge as he investigates the disappearance of one of his shuttles. His mission leads him to Venice, where he engages in a wacky chase involving a transforming gondola/hovercraft and a lot of reaction shots, and then to Rio de Janeiro, where one of the single worst sequences in the series occurs. There's a tension-free encounter on a cable car where the irritating Jaws returns to terrorize him in a dimwitted fashion as hilariously bad editing and fake stunt work prevent it from ever being exciting. After Bond escapes a petite but mysteriously strong woman helps Jaws escape from wreckage, and the two fall in love instantly while Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" plays in the background. It's hilarious to me when I read that filmmakers were skeptical such a romance would work with Jaws being so much taller, when the real reason it wouldn't is that she was pretty attractive while he was a hideous freak of nature.

The main thing you'll notice if you watch these movies in order is that this is basically the same damn movie as The Spy Who Loved Me. Bond parachutes in the opening scene, is pursued by Jaws, is chased while driving an amphibious vehicle, defeats the villain on their own turf, and is unintentionally seen by his superiors re-consummating his relationship with the main girl right before the credits. The antagonist her has the exact same scheme as the last one, to destroy civilization and then create his own, only this time using weaponized nerve gas from Brazilian flowers and a space station instead of nuclear missiles and an underwater vessel. Things get truly ridiculous once they reach the station, especially after the cavalry alive (alarmingly quickly considering they're in orbit) and engage the bad guys in a LASER SPACE BATTLE. Seriously, there's outlandish spy action and then there's bad science fiction. Pretty dumb movie overall.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Moonraker" by Shirley Bassey
Foreign locations: California, Venice, Brazil, outer space
Bond, James Bond: 18:00
Martini shaken, not stirred: 57:35
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 11 humans, 1 snake
Non-lethal takedowns: 6

The Spy Who Loved Me

Of the five Moore Bond films I've seen now, I probably liked this one the most. I've definitely noticed that with these earlier films I prefer down to earth plots, and for some reason, Russian Bond girls. There are basically four types of Bond girls, two primary and two secondary. The secondary ones will either help Bond and get killed for their efforts, or turn out to be or remain on the side of the villain (and usually get killed too). Primary ones are either silly and just there to be pretty, or capable equals to Bond himself and perhaps slightly less attractive. The latter are my favorite kind, and agent XXX here is definitely one of those. It's another movie where Bond ends up cooperating with the USSR, which is also a common thread for some enjoyable entries in the series, and is sort of one long chase as he tries to track down the man responsible for stealing some nuclear submarines.

I'd like to talk about Jaws for a second. He's probably the most recognizable Bond henchman. He also sucks. He's seriously irritating. Sure, he's initially imposing, but all he does is chase Bond ineffectually for two movies (more on that later) and look stupid. It's amazing to me that anyone likes him. He's fine at first, but the way he just keeps coming and refuses to die is tiring rather than intimidating or anything. I liked to movie in spite of him, not in any way because of him. Anyway, there are some pretty good sequences like Bond and XXX matching wits in Egypt and a prolonged car chase that turns a bit silly when it turns into a submersible. The climactic large scale battles near the end of these earlier films are rarely interesting to me, though this turned out to be a pretty good one, and I like the deadly finality of his confrontation with the villain. I really wasn't sure about Moore when I started this thing, but I think he's a pretty good Bond stuck in a pretty dull era for the series.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon
Foreign locations: Austria, Egypt, Sardinia
Bond, James Bond: 35:10, 1:06:50 (fake name)
Martini shaken, not stirred: 33:55
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 2
Kills: 14, plus explosion victims
Non-lethal takedowns: 10

The Man with the Golden Gun

I'm not sure how I felt about this one. It was a little unusual in some ways, I mean, just look at the kill count. Christopher Lee plays Scaramanga, a villain that I enjoyed for the most part but seemed to lack some of the ambition of his peers. Nick Nack is one of the series' more memorable henchmen, but more because of his novelty than being an interesting character. The movie is just sort of subdued, except when it isn't. Bond returns to Asia, but instead of doing it with a lot of their ladies he mostly gets attacked by martial arts schools. A welcome car chase is marred by the reappearance of the bumbling Southern cop from the last movie, a stunt sequence I'd be sure was a reference to The Dukes of Hazzard if the movie didn't come out five years before the show started, and a ridiculous transformation of a car into a car-plane.

I definitely thought I liked it more than the first Moore film when I was watching it, I'm just now struggling with reasons why. I guess it's just different from recent movies, a nice breath of fresh air to meet someone who just wants to make money and chill on his private island instead of blow up the planet or destroy society for some insane reason. Also, being honorable enough to want to duel with 007 is a much better reason to open yourself up to death than deciding to slowly lower your opponent to his doom without paying much attention to him instead of just shooting him in the fucking face. Maud Adams is a rare case of playing more than one Bond girl, as she reappears later in the series, but here plays Scaramanga's angry mistress and has some good, memorable scenes. The more traditional Bond girl is the garden variety Ditzybot 1.0, but she looks nice in a bikini so she gets a pass. Also, you know Moore's a pretty good Bond when he can pull of a love scene that's interrupted by an angry dwarf without it killing the momentum.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "The Man with the Golden Gun" by Lulu
Foreign locations: Beirut, China, Thailand
Bond, James Bond: 16:15, 22:15 (fake name), 46:45 (third person)
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 2
Chases: 2
Kills: 1
Non-lethal takedowns: 6

Live and Let Die

And here we have the blaxploitation entry in the series. The villain is still fancy and has a secret base, but world-changing plots and nuclear weapons are replaced with heroin trafficking and voodoo rituals. Oh, it's also the first one starring Roger Moore, which is fairly significant. I've seen three of his movies now, and I think he's a pretty good Bond stuck in an era of not very good movies. Live and Let Die is actually pretty good for a while. Paul McCartney's theme song is really entertaining, and it informs the score for the entire movie. Bond's interactions with the predominantly black antagonists are an interesting and somewhat humorous look at the time. Baron Samedi and Tee Hee Johnson are quintessential weird villains for the era. Jane Seymour is a good Bond girl, years before she became the crazy cougar in things like Wedding Crashers.

Once the film gets to New Orleans though, I sort of lost interest. As I've mentioned, the filmmakers back then were very good at finding ways to make action scenes boring. There's a massive boat chase across a bayou that's just interminable. It's over twelve minutes long but filled with very little action other than skipping boats over short strips of dry land and a lot of comic relief by a bumbling southern cop that's not even close to funny. After the villain takes off his insanely bad makeup and reveals himself, he shows up chilling underground with some sharks while his inept henchmen dance to tribal music upstairs. His eventual death is hilariously cheesy looking, and it also marks the first time Bond actually directly killed the main villain in the story. Live and Let Die has some competent moments, and also the series' first real curse as an old lady says "shit", but I didn't like it that much.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Live and Let Die" by Wings
Foreign locations: New York, Caribbean, New Orleans
Bond, James Bond: 24:05
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 3
Chases: 3
Kills: 6 humans, 1 snake
Non-lethal takedowns: 7