A View To A Kill (1985)
 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 in his 14th motion picture,
pursued by Russian helicopters and snowmobiles.
But nothing can stop him, not even an avalanche big enough to
bury half the world's polar ice cap . . . not even Duran Duran
singing the theme song!
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.
This Bond looks like a tired Xerox of an old Bond, and
everything about it seems recycled. It's probably one of the worst
of the Bond series (though not as bad as 1979s ridiculous
space-clunker Moonraker).
In this instalment, Bond battles two villains: Christopher
Walken as a grinning baby-faced billionaire industrialist named
Zorin - who intends to destroy California's Silicon Valley - and
Grace Jones as his karate-chopping sidekick, May Day (pictured
below).
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 Astro Zombies and has a mean
temper - not the kind of gal you want to meet at Studio 54. It is
instantly obvious that this duo are up to no good, but it is never
really clear why. The plot has something to do with those
microchips - the parts of a computer that are impervious to
nuclear damage (apparently). 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 load up on these babies by destroying Silicon
Valley with an earthquake that will wipe out the state of
California.
Meanwhile, James 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 oxygen out of the tires!.
For Bond freaks, there are the usual toys; A pair of sunglasses
that dilate into telescopic lenses, a credit card that unlocks
sealed windows with electronic beeps, and a computer that runs
instant identity checks on everyone in the world.
 Roger
Moore is suave, cool and well-groomed in his final appearance as
007, even when he's hanging upside down from the Golden Gate
Bridge (not bad for a 57-year-old who is supposed to still be in
his 30s). Meanwhile, Grace Jones hisses like a radiator and always
seems to be sniffing uncomfortably, as though she can smell 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 (pictured at left) - 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.
But even a weak Bond film is better than most other action
films, and despite all its flaws A View To A Kill is
entertaining and enjoyable.
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!
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