This is one of the weaker James Bond movies out there, but
it's still not that bad, if you don't mind a movie with a running time of
over 130 minutes. It would have been better with about thirty minutes
of boredom cut out and if, perhaps, the director had coaxed a better
performance out of Christopher Walken. I like the guy and think he's a
decent actor and definitely one of the strangest individuals on the
planet (good to know I'm not alone), but as villain Zorin he's way too
bland.
Roger Moore makes his seventh and final appearance as
James Bond, and I think it was about time for the guy to step down. In
this one, he just doesn't seem too enthusiastic about being the single
most indestructible babe magnet on the planet. Of course, I wouldn't
be able to manfacture much enthusiasm either if I had to sleep with
Grace Jones. That's a nasty-looking woman right there.
The plot this time has Walken as an ambitious microchip
manufacturer who plans to create an earthquake that will destroy
Silicon Valley, eliminating his competition. Maybe that's where Bill
Gates got the idea to send the CEO's of Atari and Commodore 64 to
sleep with the fishes. Grace Jones, the least feminine woman out there
(Sandra Bernhard being the runner-up in that competition) is his
musclebound assistant, May Day. Her name, of course, comes from the
phrase shouted by every man who's ever seen her topless. And as
usual, it's up to James Bond to stop everything.
A VIEW TO A KILL moves slowly and is acted without
much eagerness or excitement, yet has some merit as a Bond movie.
It's got all the violence and chase scenes, some that are fun, some
absurd. The sequence with Bond hanging from a fire truck ladder falls
into the latter category (Latter. Ladder. Get it?), as does the entire last
twenty minutes of the movie, which I'll just say involves a dirigible
and the Golden Gate bridge. Still, nearly every James Bond movie is
better than this one, which should be watched only by true fans of the
series.
Copyright © 1996 Andrew Hicks