The Roger Moore Era: One Moore (1985)

 

After twelve years and six consecutive films, "A View To A Kill" would be Roger Moore's seventh and final outing as James Bond. At the time of it's release, Moore was 57, the plausibility of him playing the character was really starting to stretch, but it's a testament to how Moore's Bond endeared himself to audiences to last as long as he did, one could argue that he should have left two or three films ago and many times he came close to doing so, but he decided to squeeze out one more Bond adventure. Aside from Daniel Craig lasting the role at 53 in "No Time To Die" (2021), I don't think we'll see another actor play Bond for such a long stretch of time and do as many films Moore has done. How does AVTAK do as Moore's swansong? It's not a great film, for Moore to have ended on, this film gets a lot of negative attention and there's plenty that warrants it but there is some entertaining and redeeming stuff in it. There are moments of interest in it as a whole is as never as entertaining as it should. The film's plot revolves around Max Zorin's plan of flooding Silicon Valley, and allowing him to corner the world's microchip market. It's a plot similar to "Goldfinger". Christopher Walken probably ranks as one of the most psychotic Bond villains, past villains might have been nuts but at least they could hold it together and put up sophisticated façade. Zorin is just completely out there and it is fun to watch. It's stated that he had some experiments done to him as a baby, but Zorin is crazy and seems to enjoy it. The teaser opening of Bond recovering a microchip from the deceased body 003 results in a snow chase, the setup looks like it would pay off with an exhilarant sequence, but never really does when Bond makes a makeshift snowboard, the excitement gets diluted by an old trick of a gag soundtrack, "California Girls" by the Beach Boys, but why did they do that and Bond escaping in a stryofoam iceberg is pretty ridiculous. The setting of the Eiffel Tower looked like it would result in a pretty memorable action scene but it's brief and quickly forgotten, but I think it was cool that they manged to do a skydive off it, how often would you see a stunk like that performed and I'm sure they went through a lot of trouble to set it up. But there's very little build up to it. Bond chasing the assassin through the Paris streets has some fun stunts, most of them are comedic when Bond's car get systematically demolished, but there's no tension in the scene. 

The next portion of the movie revolves around Bond and MI6 Agent Godfrey Tibbett played by Patrick McNee infiltrate Zorin's estate to investigate why he is putting steroids into his horses allowing them to win, during this portion both Moore and McNee have very good chemistry as both Moore and McNee were good friends in real-life and both have worked together in the past. When Bond fights some of Zorin's heavies in the workshop, it seemed that the production wanted to age up the heavies so Moore could beat them in a fight. While at Zorin's estate, Bond attends a party hosted by Zorin where he meets Dr. Carl Mortiner (Willoughby Gray) who is a former Nazi scientist, geologist Bob Connolly (Manning Redwood, who had a brief role in "Never Say Never Again), Zorin's head of Security Scarpine (Patrick Bauchau) and the main Bond girl Stacey Sutton (Tanya Roberts). Then there's May Day who is played by Grace Jones, the reason she was cast in this is because the production wanted to cater to a younger audience along with the original casting of David Bowie as Zorin, who had to decline, Jones is a unique looking woman, but she gives nothing special to her character, though she and Walken's Zorin are good pair, though I did find the bed scene between her and Moore very awkward.

 Once Bond is exposed by Zorin's cronies, Zorin challenges Bond to a horse race, which placed in a cooky obstacle course, when you look at it, makes you wonder how Zorin was able to orchestrate such a scheme, maybe he had other 00 agents paying him a visit. Meanwhile May Day kills Tibbett and Bond is knocked and locked inside a Rolls Royce, which is pushed into the lake, in which comes an impressive scene where Bond wakes up while in the water and sees Zorin and May Day from above and what does he do, he berates the air from the car tyre, I don't think one can breathe tyre air but it is a creative scene. Meanwhile Zorin is confronted by General Gogol who is annoyed about him going rogue and attempting to kill Bond and in this scene we get an appearance from Dolph Lundgren, who was dating Jones at the time as a Russian agent.

 The next portion of the film takes place in San Fransisco where Zorin plans his next motivation, flooding Silicon Valley. Bond then visits his CIA contact Chuck Lee (David Yip), initially Felix Leiter was going to showing but it was decided that a Chinese agent would be better suited. Lee reveals to Bond that Dr. Mortner was Zorin's adoptive father who had experimented on him as a baby and also investiagtes Zorin's oil rig on the docks where learns about Project Mainstrike, in which is part of Zorin's motivation to flood silicon valley. He then encounters a KGB agent who once knew played by Fiona Fullerton who was the tape of Zorin announcing his plan, but switches the tape with a fake one. Later on Bond meets with Stacey, who is a geologist and holds a grudge against Zorin for taking over her families oil company and is treating a lawsuit against him. I hate to jump on the bandwagen of the Bond fans who don't like the character but she's not the worst Bond girl, she can be annoying even when she screams James throughout the SF portion of the movie, she is quite independent and is quite useful, however she and Moore have little to no chemistry. Moore's usual funny quips are pretty lame in this and tiring. The City Hall scene is an intense one, mainly due to Walken's performance where he kills the city official and frames Bond leaving him and Stacey inside and sets the building on fire and the two struggle to escape, however it's gets annoying with Stacey's screams and she says "James". But when they get out of the building, the music score fits with a cheering crowed until a confrontation with an incompetent police captain and his squad officers that lead to a chase in a firetruck with Stacey taking the wheel and bond on the top which is obvious you can see Moore's double, the sequence even plays for some cheap laughs. Bond and Stacey then infiltrate Zorin's base where they find his plans that contains the flooding of the San Andreas vault and Zorin is planning a double-Earthquake. However Zorin then decides to mow down his men and workers, thanks to Walken's insane performance, and escapes with Scarpine and Mortner, abandoning May Day, who decides to team up with Bond and sacrifices herself by getting the bomb out the mines, foiling Zorin's plans. On his blimp, Zorin then captures Stacey with Bond in pursuit. Bond then crashes the blimp on to the Golden Gate bridge where he puts up an impressive fight with Zorin, who meets his demise and rescues that but Mortner and Scarpine are killed when Mortner grabs a stick of dynamite in attempt to kills Bond and Stacey, when Bond foils the mad doctor.

Overall AVTAK to is a mixed-bag, not the worst, but not the best swansong for Moore, I think he should have left after "Octopussy", Moore had publicly stated that AVTAK was his least favourite out of his Bond films, feeling that he was too old for the part. This would also be the final appearance of Lois Maxwell's Miss Moneypenny, in "Octopussy" they introduced a new character Penelope Smallbone, who was her assistant potentially being setup as a replacement for Maxwell giving to new younger Bond someone to flirt with in the office but the character never returned. Maxwell wanted to take over the role of M but Cubby Broccoli was dismissive about that idea saying that Bond would never take orders from a woman and Robert Brown who became to new M in Octopussy stayed on for two more movies and Desmond Llewelyn's Q would stick around for as long as he could. There are some redeeming moments of AVTAK, like Walken's performance, and the banter between Bond and Tibbett and the score, but it fall on low-mid-tier of the Bond films.

 Following AVTAK, Moore would continue to work in film and even release an autobiography in 2008 titled "My Word is My Bond", he would still continue to talk about Bond in interviews and became UNICEF good will ambassador up until his death. in 2017.

With Moore gone from the role, the question for fans was, who would be next in line to take over the role.