A View To A Kill

1 9 8 5 (UK)

In the frozen wastes of Siberia, hundreds of Russian machine guns fire away at a familiar figure on skis. Yes, it's 007 again, leaping across a crevice to freedom, pursued by helicopters, snowmobiles, and Russian bombs. Nothing can stop him, not even an avalanche big and destructive enough to bury half the world's polar ice cap.

This is just the first in the series of challenges 007 must survive to complete his mission in a film titled, for no discernible reason, A View to a Kill.  For most people looking for a couple of hours to kill, the James Bond formula still works. 007 fans don't care much about coherence; they like to check out the latest stunts, toys and tootsies. There are plenty to go around in A View to a Kill, but they all seem to have been around before.

This Bond looks like a tired Xerox of an old Bond. Everything about it seems recycled, like a tin can made out of old bottle caps.

In this instalment, Bond battles two villains: Christopher Walken as a grinning genetically-superior baby-faced billionaire industrialist named Zorin, and Grace Jones as his karate-chopping sidekick, May Day. Zorin was the creation of a mad Nazi doctor who had a talent for injecting steroids into pregnant women in concentration camps during World War II. Zorin is the result of one of those experiments - a leering madman with dead eyes who plans to control the world's supply of microchips.

May Day looks like the Queen of the Astroid Zombies and has a mean temper. When she gets a hate on for some guy, she pulls the lever on a trap door in the bottom of the Zorin Industries blimp and drops him through the sky without a parachute. This is not the kind of girl you want to meet at Studio 54.

It is instantly obvious that these characters are up to no good, but it is never clear why. The plot has something to do with those bloody microchips - the parts of a computer that are impervious to nuclear damage. This means that if Russia attacks the world, the man who controls the microchips is the only man whose toaster will still function. Zorin plans to stock up on these babies by destroying Silicon Valley with an earthquake that will wipe out the state of California. This may or may not be a good idea, depending on how you feel about the state of California, but not to worry. The plot of every James Bond movie is like the weather in New York City - if you don't like it, just wait a few minutes and it will change.

For thrills, he gets trapped in a burning elevator shaft, braves a flood on the San Andreas fault, and climbs down the side of a flaming building with a curvaceous cutie on his back. Pinned underwater in a locked Rolls-Royce, he survives by sucking the air out of the tyres (!). For toys, there's a pair of sunglasses that dilates into telescopic lenses, a credit card that unlocks sealed windows with electronic beeps, and a desk computer that runs instant identity checks on everyone in the world. ADSL? Forgeddaboutit.

Roger Moore is suave, cool and well-groomed even when he's hanging upside down from the Golden Gate Bridge. Grace Jones hisses like a radiator and always seems to be sniffing uncomfortably, as though she smells some part of her anatomy on fire. The men are all fearless, the women brave, strong, gorgeous, sexy . . . and wearing all the wrong clothes for narrow escapes. Tanya Roberts (although undeniably gorgeous) could not act her way out of a paper bag and provided one of the worst Bond girls ever. 

Practically everyone in the cast ends up drowned, electrocuted, dynamited, machine-gunned, poisoned and shredded beyond recognition. Different strokes for different folks. Including, Roger Moore. This was his final appearance as 007, and not a moment too soon, really.

TRIVIA NOTE
David Bowie was also considered for the role of Zorin. The Thin White Duke doing battle with 007? - Now that would have been worth seeing!