Sequel City – A View to a Kill

Welcome back to Sequel City…James Bond edition!  As the eight of you who have ever read this column may remember, I am a big fan of the James Bond franchise—which is really just a succession of sequels, if you think about it—and reviewed 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun here.  In honor of the franchise and its iconic number, I vowed to present a new 007 film every seven columns.  This will actually be eight, not seven, since Golden Gun, but James Bond isn’t about numbers and following the rules—he’s about shooting people and bedding hot women in the Queen’s name!

Anyway, it is my distinct pleasure to present you with 1985’s A View to a Kill.

We begin the movie in a traditional Bond pre-credits sequence, the thrust of which is recovering a microchip from a fallen agent.  The microchip is analyzed and the British government discovers that it has been copied from chips made by Zorin Industries.  The official chips are meant to counteract the nasty magnetic pulse that will render all electronics useless after a nuclear explosion, and the fact that there are copies floating around is quite troubling.

James Bond, played by Roger Moore in his seventh and final appearance in the role, realizes right off that the evil-doer here must be Zorin himself.  It’s kind of a leap in logic, but of course Bond is right.  Max Zorin is played by Christopher Walken, and he’s the typical Bond Villain: unspeakably rich white dude, smug and psychotic.  Besides microchip production, Zorin is also heavily into horse breeding and racing.  And into Mayday, his tall, exotic, muscular and dangerous bodyguard/girlfriend, played by Grace Jones.

The trail to Max Zorin leads Agent 007 to France—to the Eiffel Tower, no less—and then to Zorin gorgeous and freakin’ huge French château.  Action starts percolating, chase scenes are had, punches thrown, bullets fired.  Bond survives long enough to figure out that the whole microchip/horseracing story is not only connected, but that it wraps up in San Francisco…and involves stunning Bond Girl Tanya Roberts, a Geologist with connections to Zorin.

The rap on this movie is that it is a bad Bond, definitely in the bottom third of a series which is slated to celebrate its twenty-third official entry in 2012.  Roger Moore was too old, the plot was too stupid, so on and so on.  As a Bond fan, I think it’s more complicated than that.  When you follow a franchise that lasts a long time—Dr. Who, say—I think you go beyond stock labels such as “good” and “bad” with individual installments and look more for special moments or intrinsic elements.

A View to a Kill has some good Bond elements.  True, Moore was too old for the role of Bond at this point.  But to me, at least, Moore looked more spritely and alert than in the movie than the one that came before this, the awesomely titled Octopussy.  Moore was ok.  I’ve read reviews that insinuate that the man was doddering around with a cane in 1985, and that’s ridiculous.  Also, the plot themes were promising—too complicated for its own good, but at least an attempt to touch on modern issues such as computer technology and steroid use.  (Dolph Lungren makes a cameo in this movie, and of course he would portray the ultimate steroid villain in Rocky IV.)

Speaking of villains, this film has an awesome pair of them in Walken and Grace Jones.  Years before his stints on SNL would hip the world to how wonderfully odd he is, Walken plays a villain who is scary because he’s so unpredictably sadistic.  Technically all (or most) of the Bond villains are supposed to fit this mold, but Walken nails an almost Joker-from-The Dark Knight-quality.  And his perchance for giving scripted lines the “wrong” emphasis only helps build this aura!

Walken’s sidekick Mayday, played by Grace Jones, is great as well.  Like second bananas Jaws and Oddjob before her, Mayday is visually striking—the viewer knows she’s a badass just by looking at her, before she actually starts kicking ass.  On top of this, it turns out she’s got superhuman strength and is able to throw guys around at will.  The viewer knows Bond is going to have to deal with her at some point and isn’t entirely sure how exactly.

And there’s more that goes right in this movie as well—there are fights on the outside of the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge, for crying out loud!  (The Golden Gate thing comes late in the film, but I don’t deem it to be a spoiler as it is prominent on the DVD cover and all other advertisements.  And I mean, I’m not revealing who wins, right?)

Unfortunately, the good in this movie just isn’t good enough.  In fact, the good is kind of squandered.  None of the great settings are used to their full potential, and the action is lame throughout.  The pre-credit sequences are legendary in Bond movies, but the one we have here is boring and unoriginal.  The famous gadgets from Q are ho-hum as well, and the microchip plot is needlessly complicated—and once revealed in its entirety, very dumb.  Yes, Mayday is a badass, but also an underused one, and it even takes a while to get Zorin going.  And although Bond Girl Roberts is hot as all hell, her character is annoying and is acted horribly…even for the low Bond Girl standards.

But perhaps worst of all, the best Bond theme EVER is wasted on this substandard movie: Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill.”  Why couldn’t they have done that song for Goldeneye or Casino Royale?  Not just a great Bond song, but a great one period.  “Night fall covers meeeeee, but you know the plans I’m making…”

Regardless, I still recommend seeing A View to a Kill.  Sure, I’m biased, being an unabashed Bond nerd, but I think there are plenty of Entertaining Scenes here to keep you…entertained?

Entertaining Scenes:

• Fun assassination/chased assassin sequence high up on the Eiffel Tower—though not as super-cool as it could have been.  Assassin Mayday (Grace Jones) and Supervillain Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) evade capture by Agent 007 James Bond (Roger Moore.)

• Zorin hosts an Evil Villain Party at his opulent French château.  Geologist Tanya Roberts shows up looking hott, so of course Bond hits on her.  Mayday breaks up Bond’s pimping game.

• After Mayday looks both dangerous and sexy during a karate sparring session with Zorin, she nearly catches Bond snooping around the château.  Instead, she finds 007 naked in her bed…so of course, they do it.  Question mark exclamation mark.

• Bond and Zorin ride horses in the classic Bond/Villain Violent Pissing Contest.  While that’s going on, Mayday kills one of Bond’s confederates.

• Bond cheats a watery death in an entertaining manner.

• Zorin hosts an Evil Villain Conference of his peers and underlings to describe part of his unspeakably evil plan.  As usually happens, one dude doesn’t like the deal and wants out.  It should be pretty obvious what happens to said dude, but at least the exact method is a surprise.

• In San Francisco, Bond meets a KGB agent working the same case.  An insanely hot female KGB agent, whom Bond immediately bangs.

• Roberts re-enters the film after a long absence.  Bond saves her from attackers and she in turn squeals a lot.

• Cool scenes in San Francisco’s City Hall, which, if you watched the DVD with its TWO commentary tracks as I did, you’ll know was filmed in the actual building itself.  Unfortunately, the City Hall scenes lead to a very boring car chase.

• Zorin steps up his villainy in the last half hour or so.  It comes too late to really describe without spoilers, but he really steps up the scary, uncaring sadism here.

• The climax.  And as most climaxes do, it involves a blimp and the Golden Gate Bridge.

That’s all I’ve got, folks.  Another Sequel City: James Bond Edition will return for my twenty-first column…always assuming that the good people at Pop Bunker will have me that long.  As usual, please pepper me with comments, praises, condemnations, suggestions for future sequels, turtle soup recipes, whatever is on your mind.  Until then, “dance into the fire, when all we see is a viewww to a killllllllll…”