A View to a Kill is a film of real entertainment ambition and considerable achievement that is ultimately undermined by the visible mismatch between its fifty-seven-year-old star and the physical demands of the Bond role, a work of real craft and entertainment intelligence that gave Roger Moore a farewell entry of adequate dramatic quality while demonstrating with complete clarity that the franchise required a younger and more physically credible leading man. John Glen's 1985 film is not the finest Bond film, but as a demonstration of the franchise's capacity for spectacular entertainment despite its central casting limitation, it delivers its pleasures with a confidence and a craft that makes the experience consistently enjoyable.
At a Glance
Director: John Glen
Runtime: 131 minutes
Starring: Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, Tanya Roberts, Patrick Macnee
Release: 1985
Critics Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, entertaining despite its central casting limitation)
Audience Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, enjoyable)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Bond investigates a microchip manufacturer's connection to a Soviet operation and uncovers Max Zorin's plan to destroy Silicon Valley by flooding it, cornering the global microchip market. The Golden Gate Bridge climax is the film's most dramatically satisfying sequence, a demonstration of practical stunt filmmaking of considerable physical ambition and real dramatic tension. The plot's Silicon Valley setting gives the film a contemporary technological dimension that distinguishes it from the more generically global earlier entries, and Zorin's plan has a commercial logic that gives the franchise's central antagonist dynamic an unusual economic specificity.
Characters
Christopher Walken's Max Zorin is the franchise's most genuinely unhinged villain, a KGB-created psychopath of such complete personal eccentricity and such real menace that his machine-gunning of his own workforce gives the franchise's central antagonist dynamic its most disturbing moment. Walken plays the character with a manic energy and a real theatrical intelligence that makes Zorin one of the franchise's most memorable villains despite the film's more limited dramatic ambitions. Grace Jones' May Day is the franchise's most physically formidable henchwoman, a figure of such complete physical authority and such real visual distinctiveness that her eventual sacrifice gives the film its most unexpectedly moving moment. Moore's Bond is given adequate dramatic material, deployed with the franchise's characteristic confidence, though the physical mismatch between star and role is most visible in this entry. Tanya Roberts' Stacey Sutton is the franchise's least dramatically capable Bond girl of the Moore era, a character of limited dramatic complexity whose primary function is to be rescued.
Tone
Glen pitches the film at a register of spectacular entertainment and adequate espionage tension, giving the film a tonal confidence and an entertainment ambition that suits the more extravagant register. The film's most rewarding sequences are those in which Walken's Zorin is most directly present, and the film is at its least convincing when it attempts the more physically demanding action sequences that Moore's age makes increasingly implausible.
Meaning / Themes
The film's central concern is the relationship between technological ambition and human destruction, between Zorin's plan to corner the global microchip market and his willingness to destroy Silicon Valley to achieve it, a meditation on corporate greed and technological power the more conventionally criminal franchise villains did not attempt.
Direction
Glen's direction is technically accomplished and entertainingly assured, with a command of the Parisian and Californian locations that gives the film a visual variety and a geographic specificity the more generically global earlier entries did not always achieve. The Golden Gate Bridge climax is the film's directorial highlight, a demonstration of practical stunt filmmaking of considerable physical ambition and real dramatic tension. Duran Duran's title song is one of the franchise's most energetically performed and most culturally distinctive, and John Barry's score gives the film a dramatic weight that suits its more spectacular ambitions.
Cultural Reception
A View to a Kill was a commercial success on its release but received a mixed critical response, with most reviewers noting the visible mismatch between Moore's age and the physical demands of the role. Its reputation has settled into a consensus that acknowledges Walken's Zorin as one of the franchise's most memorable villain performances while recognising the film's more limited dramatic ambitions and the casting limitation at its centre. Moore's decision to retire from the role after this entry is now widely regarded as the correct one, and the film is most frequently discussed as a farewell entry of adequate quality that demonstrated the franchise's need for renewal.
Who Should Watch
Essential viewing for Moore completists and a rewarding film for general audiences who approach it primarily for Christopher Walken's extraordinary villain performance. The Golden Gate Bridge climax and Duran Duran's title song are the film's most purely enjoyable elements.
Final Verdict: A farewell entry of adequate quality undermined by its central casting limitation. Christopher Walken's Zorin is one of the franchise's most unhinged and most memorable villains, Grace Jones' May Day is the franchise's most physically formidable henchwoman, and John Glen's direction gives the Golden Gate Bridge climax a practical stunt ambition that makes A View to a Kill a more entertaining farewell than Moore's age might have suggested.
0 comments