Of all the films in the "official" James Bond series spearheaded by producer Cubby Broccoli, A View to a Kill, the fourteenth one, is the one that comes closest an all-out spoof in the manner of Casino Royale (1967) or Mike Myers's Austin Powers series. It barely qualifies as authentic James Bond at all. It would be easy to dismiss the film as the worst Bond film ever, as some critics do, but some of the camp humor is exceptionally funny and there are some great performances from the supporting cast. The film includes some of the best individual lines and facial expression that you'll find anywhere in the series, so despite it being a deeply flawed film, I enjoy it more than perhaps I should.

Historical Background: This film was the middle of the five directed by John Glen. His first, For Your Eyes Only (1981), was arguably his best. Then he finished the Roger Moore era with Octopussy (1983) and the present film and later returned to direct both Timothy Dalton films, The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989).

The Story: The pre-credit sequence finds James Bond (Roger Moore) on skis, amid icebergs in northern Siberia. He's located the frozen corpse of British agent 003 and extracts a locket that contains an important microchip. Bond is spotted, however, by Russian soldiers who are there in force, on skis, snowmobiles, and in helicopters, obviously looking for that same microchip. In a vintage Bond snow chase, Bond eludes the pursuers on skis, a commandeered snowmobile, and a makeshift snowboard (the last segment accompanied by an excerpt from the Beach Boys' song "California Girls"). Bond downs a helicopter with a flare before climbing into a mini-sub disguised as an iceberg, waiting to ferry him back to safety in Alaska. It will be a five-day trip back, so Bond quickly settles in with the best beluga and the lovely pilot, Kimberley Jones (Mary Stavin). The credits now run against an appealing title song, "A View to a Kill," sung by Duran Duran and composed by Duran Duran and John Berry. The title visuals feature a fluorescent gun and dancing girls with fluorescent highlights in body paint sprinkled here and there.

The film proper opens in London at MI6 headquarters, where Bond is intrigued with Monneypenny's (Lois Maxwell) elaborate hat. "A bit over the top for the office," he muses. Bond joins M (Robert Brown), Q (Desmond Llewelyn), and Defense Minister Sir Frederick Gray (Geoffrey Keen) for a briefing. Q illustrates with a micro-comparator that the chip recovered in Siberia by Bond is identical to a top-secret chip developed for British Defense by Zorin Industries. Apparently the Russians have a pipeline into the company and its up to Bond to find out why and how. Gray insists that the investigation be undertaken discretely, since Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) is a leading French industrialist and politically connected.

Bond and his associates head off for a day at the racetrack, where Zorin has a prize colt named Ithicus. May Day (Grace Jones), Zorin's companion, is a striking black woman, gaudily dressed. Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Macnee), a horse trainer and British agent, meets Bond at the track. When Zorin's horse wins, Tibbett expresses suspicion: "In all my years as a trainer, I've never seen a horse run such a fast last furlough." Zorin seems able to breed winners from inferior bloodlines. The French Jockey Club has hired French detective Achille Aubergine (Jean Rougerie) to investigate, so Bond arranges a meeting at the Parisian club at the base of the Eiffel Tower. As the lights dim for an enchanted butterfly act, Aubergine informs Bond that nothing is known about Zorin before he defected to the West from East Germany. Before Aubergine can add more, the metal butterfly, wielded at the end of a fly rod, slams into his face, its tips laced with poison. Aubergine falls dead in his soup. Bond pursues the assassin, who flees up into the Eiffel Tower. Near the top, the assassin suddenly jumps and parachutes off into the distance. Bond jumps atop a descending elevator, steals a taxi from an irate Parisian cabby (Lucien Jérôme), and pursues the assassin even after his cab is sliced in half and reduced to two wheels. The parachuting assassin lands on a Seine River tour boat. Bond leaps from a bridge onto the same boat, but crashes through the roof into a wedding cake. By the time he's brushed off the frosting, the assassin has debarked onto a waiting speedboat driven by Zorin. When the assassin removes her mask, we see that it is May Day.

Bond gets himself invited to a thoroughbred sale at Zorin's posh chateau in Chantilly, using the alias James St. Jean Smythe. Tibbett accompanies Bond, disguised as his combination chauffeur and manservant, whom Bond abuses mercilessly. Bond quickly encounters Zorin's collection of henchmen and henchwomen, including the head of security Scarpine (Patrick Bauchau), Jenny Flex (Alison Doody), and Pan Ho (Papillon Soo). May Day is there as well, but initially fails to recognize Bond as her pursuer at the Eiffel Tower. Bond also spots two of Zorin's American connections, the disreputable oil geologist Bob Conley (Manning Redwood) and the simpering and delectable Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts). While snooping about, Bond also meets Zorin's head trainer, Dr. Carl Mortner (Willoughby Gray), who looks like and is a renegade from Nazi Germany.

That night, Bond and Tibbett go snooping around the stables and discover a secret underground laboratory. They learn that Zorin and Mortner have developed a remote controlled injection system that delivers a jolt of undetectable natural horse steroids during a race to ensure that the horse finishes exceptionally strong. They also discover that Zorin is hoarding microchips, despite a worldwide surplus. Two burly guards (Ron Tarr and Taylor McAuley) interrupt Bond and Tibbett as they are prowling about. Bond manages to subdue the two, strapping them into shipping crates, and the pair of British agents hurry back to their sleeping quarters. Zorin has been alerted to the intruders, however, and is already investigating Bond's room. Bond has to sneak into May Day's bedroom, where he pretends to be awaiting her attentions. With Zorin's acquiescence, May Day obliges.

In the morning, Zorin summons Bond to his office, where he subjects Bond to a computerized video scan and identification check, under the guise of helping "James St. Jean Smythe" find a horse that will match his requirements. In a scene performed deliciously by Christopher Walken, Zorin reacts to what he is discovering about Bond while maintaining the pretense of casual conversation. "According to the computer," says Zorin, "we have several horses that might interest you." The computer screen then reveals, "Subject is James Bond, 007." Zorin exhales, "Oh," and smiles bemusedly. "Usually armed . . . Extremely dangerous," reads the computer screen. Zorin smirks. "Would you be interested primarily in stamina or speed?" he inquires. The computer screen now reads, "Licensed to kill." Zorin shuts it off and adds, "I think I have just the horse for you. It's time for my morning ride. Why don't you try him out?"

Soon, Zorin has arranged for May Day to assassinate Tibbett at a carwash in town. He intends to murder Bond on the steeplechase course, which is rigged with adjustable gates. Bond is stuck with an excessively spirited mount, appropriately names "Inferno." Nevertheless, our James manages both to outride Zorin and escape from the lethal course by jumping a fence at the perimeter. Bond leaps from the horse onto Tibbett's passing limousine, but, unfortunately, it's now being driven by May Day, with Tibbett dead in the backseat. Bond is knocked out and the car pushed into a lake, but he survives by sucking on tire air until the would-be assassins have wandered away.

KGB director General Gogol (Walter Gotell) confronts Zorin at the racetrack. We now learn that Zorin is an ex-KGB agent. Just how "ex" is a matter of dispute, since, as Gogol puts it, "Nobody ever leaves the KGB." Gogol has backup in the form of agent Klotkoff (Bogdan Kominowski) and another thug, but Zorin has backup as well – May Day and Jenny Flex. Gogol has to back off for the time being.

Aboard Zorin's private dirigible over California, the madman now reveals his sinister plan to a group of international electronics tycoons. Zorin intends to destroy Silicon Valley, where 80% of the world's microchips are made, thereby providing his partners with a monopoly on microchip production and distribution – at a price of $100 million apiece. One Taiwanese tycoon (Anthony Chinn) decides that the price is too steep and drops out. May Day quickly shows him the door, which consists of stairs that instantly transform into a slide and dump the unfortunate man into the atmosphere thousands of feet above the bay. "So," asks Zorin, "anyone else want to drop out?"

Bond arrives in San Francisco and makes contact with CIA agent Chuck Lee (David Yip). He learns that Dr. Mortner was formerly "Hans Lal," a German pioneer in developing steroids, who experimented with the drugs on pregnant women to see if he could breed children of exceptional I.Q. The I.Q. boost succeeded but the kids were also psychotic. Bond realizes that Zorin is one of those steroid kids – a psychotic genius.

Bond's next order of business is to investigate Zorin's floating oil pumping station out in the Bay. In frogman gear, he tapes a conversation between Zorin and his henchmen concerning "Operation Main Strike." Bond almost gets caught in the pump blades when it is suddenly started. He has to use his air tank to jam the pump. Reaching the surface, Bond spots another frogman snooping about and setting the detonator for a time bomb. It's Klotkoff and when Zorin's men discover him, he is murdered gruesomely. After Bond makes it back to the beach, he encounters a second Russian agent, Pola Ivanova (Fiona Fullerton), a lovely woman with whom he has previously enjoyed mutual seduction. They decide to "debrief" one another in the hot tub of a nearby hotel room. As Bond goes to put on some music, Ivanova exclaims joyously, "The bubbles tickle my . . . Tchaikovsky!" As soon as Ivanova is convinced that Bond is distracted, she steals what she believes to be his tape recording of Zorin, but Bond had taken the precaution of engineering a switch.

At City Hall, Bond meets with Mr. W.G. Howe, posing as Mr. Stock from the London Financial Times, working on an article about Zorin Industries. Howe is in charge of permits having to do with environmental safeguards. Bond spots Stacey Sutton, who works there, and follows her home. It's good that he did because several of Zorin's thugs show up to "persuade" Stacey to accept a generous offer from Zorin to buy out Stacey's shares of Sutton Oil. Bond fends off the intruders, with some help from Stacey. She smashes the urn with her grandfather's ashes over one thug's head. Bond wines and dines Stacey, literally, cooking her up a fancy quiche and frequently refilling her wine glass. Instead of falling for his charm, she falls asleep on him, so there's nothing left for the old geezer to do but to tuck her in like a little girl. In the morning, Chuck Lee shows up with more information and promises to rally backup from CIA headquarters, but Lee is killed by May Day as soon as he leaves Stacey's estate.

James and Stacey head down to city hall and gain access to the files using Stacey's security pass. They discover a map referring to "Main Strike Mine" and piece two and two together. Zorin is trying to trigger an earthquake by pumping water into the mine. Zorin, Scarpine, May Day, and Jenny Flex suddenly show up to interrupt the investigation. "Alive and well, I see, and still bungling in the dark!" says Zorin. Zorin improvises a plan to rid himself of these pests by killing Howe with Bond's gun, shutting Bond and Stacey into the elevator mid-floor, and torching the building. James and Stacey make a dramatic escape from the inferno. The emergence from the elevator shaft is punctuated by Stacey's shrill but melodic screams, "Help, James!" Later, they climb down from the roof on the ladder of a fire truck. A San Francisco Police Captain (Joe Flood) intercepts Bond when he reaches the ground, intending to arrest Bond for the murder of Howe. James and Stacey manage to steal a hook-and-ladder truck and lead the police on a merry chase that wrecks seemingly half the squad cars in San Francisco. As the unfastened ladder swings about widely, it sheers off the top of a camper to reveal a very surprised couple in bed. Just when the Police Captain is chewing out one of his officer for wrecking a squad car, assuring him that he'll pay for the damage out of his paycheck, the Captain's own squad car is demolished in the background by the ballast of a drawbridge.

James and Stacey now undertake the obligatory penetration of the villain's lair, by driving their fire truck toward Main Strike Mine. They switch into a truck delivering explosives to allay suspicion. The rest of the film is nearly continuous action, with Bond and Stacey penetrating Zorin's office, the pair being pursued by May Day and her sidekicks, Jenny Flex and Pan Ho, Zorin and Scarpine gleefully murdering some lesser henchmen with machineguns, Zorin's betrayal of May Day, and May Day helping James neutralize the main bomb by shifting it to a harmless location ("I have to hold the brake on!"). There are some classic images among these scenes. When the plan is foiled, Zorin still hopes to at least secure some vengeance by abducting Stacey into his dirigible. Bond seizes hold of the mooring rope, so Zorin tries to dislodge and kill 007 by pounding him against the side of the Golden Gate Bridge. "This will hurt him more than me," says Zorin. Bond manages to wrap the mooring rope around a girder. The increasingly deranged Zorin demands that his pilot pull away, shooting "More! More power! More! Do it!" [That particular line later became the basis for a Saturday Night Live skit, which Epinionator thevoid99 and I both find exceptionally amusing, featuring SLN recurrent host Walken. "More! More cowbell!!] After a bit of ax-wielding and dynamite explosions, Bond and Stacey are left wishing for a taxi, stranded atop the Golden Gate Bridge. At MI6 headquarters, Gen. Gogol awards Bond the "Order of Lenin" because Russian technology depends so much on stealing industrial secrets from Silicon Valley. Back in Stacey's bedroom, Bond gets the only reward he truly covets, in the shower, where Stacey moans passionately, "Oh, James!" One dirty old man is not enough, however! Q arrives in the form of his remote robot to gaze on voyeuristically.

Production Values: The film's title was taken from one of the short stories by Ian Fleming from the collection entitled For Your Eyes Only. The plot borrows heavily from Goldfinger (1964), substituting microchips for gold. Both villains were horse breeders and both execute a reluctant partner. I like the psychotic quality of the villain in the present film and the background provided to explain his condition. The quality of the dialog is distinctly mixed, including some of the best individual lines in the series (e.g., "Intuitive improvisation is the secret of genius;" "You're out of your depth;" "Good! Right on schedule!"), but also some of the lamest bits of sexual innuendo imaginable (e.g., "I love an early morning ride;" "I'm happiest in the saddle;" "Be a good girl and get some glasses!")

The action scenes are mostly played for laughs, but at least some of the elements actually do incite laughter. Even the pre-credit sequence, which begins in a serious tone, culminates in parody once a Beach Boy tune comes on to accompany Bond snowboarding to his waiting submarine. The fire engine pursuit is packed with one absurdity after another and makes no pretense at realism. The final showdown atop the Golden Gate Bridge is camp humor at its best. There is, however, one major problem with the action in this film. The discontinuity between the stunts and the stuntmen, on the one hand, and the close-ups of Moore (often with obvious rear projections) is way too evident. Sometimes it seems that Moore just isn't truly involved in the film at all.

The biggest problem with this film in general is Roger Moore. I'm not one of those Bond snobs who rail against Roger Moore altogether, though I find him a bit too fatuous for my taste. Though he was never the best Bond, even at his best, Moore brought a unique perspective to the role, which added to the variety within the series. By 1985, when A View to a Kill was made, Moore was 58 years of age, which is too old for any action hero (except possibly Clint Eastwood) but especially one whose image includes bedding young babes. Moore was a full 28 years older than the primary Bond girl, Tanya Roberts. The most appropriate "love scene" in A View to a Kill is the one in which Roberts has fallen asleep before Moore gets to her bedroom and he tucks her in like a father might a daughter. The final scene in the shower stall seems far less apropos! The Bond formula only works if Bond is indeed the irresistible hunk he's supposed to be. Over-the-hill Bonds always come across like lounge lizards (e.g., Octopussy and Never Say Never Again, both from 1983). A sizable part of the film's energy goes into masking the deficiencies deriving from Moore's antique status. The stunt doubles are not always an adequate approximation of Moore's physical appearance and a great deal of overly obvious effort goes into obscuring their faces. The fight scenes don't look very authentic. The thugs in the scene at Stacey's house had to be portrayed as incompetent; otherwise James and Stacey could not have believably overcome them. One positive aspect of the necessity of compensating for Moore's age was the integration of a far better than average cast of supporting characters. Bond is really only in this film in name; the film's main joy comes from a bunch of great character performances.

What most elevates this film from dismal to a smidgen higher than mediocrity is the quality of the villain and the chief henchwoman. Christopher Walken is a masterful comedian, in my opinion, and alone worth the price of admission to this film. Some reviewers despise Walken's performance, calling it "over-the-top." My response is that this entire film is an "over-the-top" comic book version of Bond and any attempt to salvage it from that status would have been doomed from the start. Walken was right to toss into that mix his deliciously camp, scenery-chewing take on the Max Zorin character. With his falsetto laugh and frequently out-of-place grin, Zorin is the most overtly psychotic of the Bond villains. It's not just the big scenes in which he's brilliant (i.e., "More! More power!"). Watch Walken in the scene in which he interviews Bond at his computer and identifies him as 007. Watch Walken's final crazed smile as he loses his grip on the girder of the bridge and falls to his death. Walken is also excellent at revealing Zorin's sudden mood swings with abrupt changes in facial expressions. Walken's other work has included roles in The Anderson Tapes (1971), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Annie Hall (1977), The Deer Hunter (1978), Heaven's Gate (1980), Biloxi Blues (1988), Comfort of Strangers (1991), Sleepy Hollow (1999), and Catch Me if You Can (2002).

Grace Jones provides one of the most memorable henchwomen for the entire series. She doesn't get a lot of dialog and is only so-so at delivering what she does get, but her striking presence and physical acting is outstanding. I haven't the slightest doubt that the impressively built Jones could have beat the living daylights out of Roger Moore in real life. Perhaps it would have been nice if she had done so in the film, when he comes on to her with one of those pathetic sexual innuendos. The other two henchwomen, Papillon Soo as Pan Ho and Alison Doody as Jenny Flex, were a complete waste of celluloid. Patrick Bauchau and Manning Redwood make little impression as Scarpine and Bob Conley respectively, but Willoughby Gray does excellent work as Zorin's father figure, Dr. Carl Mortner.

One of the raps against this film is Tanya Roberts as the primary Bond girl, Stacey Sutton. She's basically a flesh-and-blood Barbie doll, but she doesn't annoy me in this film as she does other reviewers. She's an airhead in a film in which virtually every character is a stereotype, so why not an airhead? I like her physical beauty, her soft, sexy voice, and the way she screams, "Help me, James!!" Her screams are downright musical! The fact that she's way too young for Moore is not her fault. Certainly, I don't rank Roberts among the great Bond girls, but she's not a particular deficit in this film either. Fiona Fullerton shows a lot of acting talent as Russian agent Pola Ivanova. She also appeared in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). Mary Stavin is unimpressive in a small pre-credit part as Kimberley Jones.

The regulars are not up to their usual quality either. Lois Maxwell is finally too old for the part of Moneypenny (this would be her last appearance) and Desmond Llewelyn has his poorest showing. On the other hand, those shortcomings are more than made up for by some of the best bit comedic parts of the entire series. Lucien Jérôme is memorable as the Paris Taxi Driver despite just a few minutes of screen time. Joe Flood is a riot as the San Francisco Police Captain and Jean Rougerie is wonderful as Aubergine. Also excellent is Daniel Benzali as W.G. Howe: "But that would mean I would have to be . . ." "Dead!" Benzali also appeared in The Gray Zone (2002).

Bottom-Line: The Special Edition DVD is loaded with extras, as with all of the Bond films. The commentary track features edited interviews rather than scene specific commentary. There are also two documentaries: "Inside A View to a Kill", which is the "making of" type, and "The Bond Sound: The Music of 007" about the evolution of the Bond theme and soundtracks. There's a deleted scene called "The Jailhouse" that would have followed the Eiffel Tower and Paris chase scenes.

If you like the comic book approach to Bond filmmaking, this one achieves a sort of perfection of that style. There's no pretense of substance, class, style, or intelligence, but with Moore's attitude toward the role and his advanced age, it's probably the best the filmmakers could do. Here is my Overall Certified Gold Bond Rating for this film, using my system that facilitates comparisons across the series:

Bond: an aged caricature of Roger Moore Rating: 2/5

Villains: Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) Rating: 5/5

Henchmen: Dr. Carl Mortner (Willoughby Gray) 4/5; Scarpine (Patrick Bauchau) 2/5; Bob Conley (Manning Redwood) 2/5 Overall Rating: 3/5

Henchwomen: May Day (Grace Jones) 5/5; Jenny Flex (Alison Doody) 2/5; Pan Ho (Papillon Soo) 1/5 Rating: 3/5

Bond Girls: Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts) 4/5; Pola Ivanova (Fiona Fullerton) 4/5; Kimberley Jones (Mary Stavin) 2/5 Rating: 4/5

Colleagues/Recurrent Characters: Q (Desond Llewellyn) 3/5; M (Robert Brown) 4/5; Miss Moneypenny (aged Lois Maxwell) 3/5; Sir Frederick Gray (Geoffrey Keen) 5/5; Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Bauchau) 4/5; Gen. Anatol Gogol (Walter Gotell) 5/5; Chuck Lee (David Yip) 4/5; Achille Aubergine (Jean Rougerie) 5/5; Paris Taxi Driver (Lucien Jérôme) 5/5; WG Howe (Daniel Benzali) 5/5 Overall Rating: 4/5

Storyline: Rigged horserace 2/5; Nazi steroid babies 4/5; flooding of silicon valley 4/5 Overall Rating: 4/5

Action: Pre-credit recovery of microchip with surfboard to sub ending 3/5; poorly edited and choreographed fight in under-stable lab 1/5; steeplechase assassination attempt 1/5; fight in Tracy's mansion 1/5; fire at City Hall and escape from elevator 4/5; slapstick fire engine chase 4/5 (for its humor); flooding of mineshaft and slaughter of miners 5/5; Bond and May Day moving bomb 5/5; dirigible battle at the Golden Gate Bridge 5/5 Overall Rating: 4/5

Toys: Miniature robot 1/5; pre-recorded conversations and snoring 1/5 Overall Rating: 1/5

Character Development: Bond as caricature; Bond girl, villain, henchmen, and henchwomen mostly one-dimensional; good job with Zorin/May Day relationship and Zorin/Mortner relationship Rating: 3/5

Music: excellent song "A View to a Kill" performed by Duran Duran 4/5; musical score by John Barry Rating: 5/5

Locales: Siberia, Paris, Chantilly chateau, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, mostly sets rather than genuine vistas Rating: 4/5

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Overall Certified Gold Bond Rating: 42/60
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You may also enjoy my other reviews for 007 films:

Casino Royale (1954), non-series, television
Dr. No (1962)
From Russia with Love (1963)
Goldfinger (1964)
Thunderball (1965)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Casino Royale (1967), non-series
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Diamonds Are Forever (1971)
Live and Let Die (1973)
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Moonraker (1979)
For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Octopussy (1983)
Never Say Never Again (1983), non-series
The Living Daylights (1987)
Licence to Kill (1989)
GoldenEye (1995)
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
The World Is Not Enough (1999)
Die Another Day (2002)

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older