Review for A View To A Kill

Introduction

I’ve finally made it to the end of my trek through the James Bond franchise, which picked up when I wandered into a pound store and grabbed a bunch of cheap discs. I’d already bought the two Bond movies that I adore, but that left the Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Brosnan and Craig movies to review. I had hoped to round it all off with the most recent Bond movie, No Time To Die, but I ran out of time, and was left with Die Another Day and A View To a Kill to watch. It really was a case of picking my poison, as neither is the epitome of the franchise. I decided to watch the least bad one last, but there’s not a lot in it. I’m going to have to watch the Dalton movies again to wash the taste of this one out of my mouth.


It’s a good thing for British defence when a company comes up with a microchip that is proof against the EMP caused by nuclear explosions. It’s a bad thing when it turns up in possession of the Soviets. Bond is assigned the mission to investigate Zorin Industries, who look to be the source of the leak. Wealthy industrialist Max Zorin is a relatively new arrival on the business scene, and given his interest in horse racing, it’s obvious that he’ll do anything to win. But the more Bond investigates, the more it becomes clear that Zorin is no mere KGB stooge; he’s got a killer plan to corner the world market on microchips.

The Disc

A View To A Kill gets a 2.35:1 widescreen 1080p transfer with the choice between DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround and Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround English, DTS 5.1 French and German, and DD 5.1 Surround Spanish and Portuguese, with subtitles in these languages and Danish, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish. It’s a bit of a shame that of all the classic Bonds, A View To A Kill gets the best transfer. The image is clear and sharp, colours and rich and naturalistic, with no egregious re-grading or colour timing. Detail levels are excellent and there is enough grain in the image to avert accusations of DNR. It’s very much a film of its time, with a title sequence rich with eighties neon pastels, and a lens flare infused night time chase sequence. The DTS-HD MA track really is to be avoided with dialogue seriously buried in the mix, overpowered by the action and the music. Thankfully the Dolby Digital 2.0 English track is more authentic to the original cinema experience, and offers a much more balanced audio experience. John Barry deftly scored the movie, and Duran Duran gave a theme song that momentarily had me looking forward to new Bond movies just for the theme songs.

Extras

You get one disc in a BD Amaray case, with a UV code within. The disc boots to an animated menu and you’ll find the following extras.

In the MI6 Commentary you’ll find one with Sir Roger Moore and one with director John Glen and members of the cast and crew.


In Declassified: MI6 Vault...

Film ’85 BBC Report (4:37)
Original Promotional Featurette (7:45)
The Streets of San Francisco Deleted Footage (3:03)
Float Like a Butterfly – Test Footage (1:32)
Deleted Scenes with introductions by John Glen x4 (6:27)
Alternate and Expanded Scenes with introduction by John Glen x3 (6:28)


In Mission Dossier...

Inside A View To A Kill – An Original Documentary (37:28)
The Bond Sound – The Music of James Bond (21:38)
A View To A Kill Music Video by Duran Duran (4:32)
Exotic Locations (4:28)


Ministry of Propaganda offers 3 Theatrical Trailers and 4 TV Spots.

The Image Database offers 13 categories of image.

Conclusion

A couple of times, re-watching old Bond movies has surprised me with a sense of relevance to the modern world. Tomorrow Never Dies had tensions flaring in the South China Sea as part of its plot, while The World is Not Enough had Russian control of Western Europe’s energy supply as its provocative issues. A View To A Kill is all about a global microchip shortage, or at least a psychopath’s plan to engineer a shortage. It turns out that relevance does not in any way make a bad movie better, and A View To A Kill is a bad movie.


The pre-credits sequence in a Bond movie sets the tone for what is to come, yet can exist as mini-movies in their own right, a chance to show off some really epic stunts with a minimum of plot. A View To A Kill starts off in the icy wastes, and a skiing sequence ensues, which we have seen in plenty of Bond movies, but then Bond loses his skies, and has to improvise a snowboard. This must have been one of the first times, if not the first time that we had seen snowboard stunts in a big budget action movie, moves we had never seen before and it should have been breathtaking. Only director John Glen puts a Beach Boys track over the action to emphasise the comedy, and it kills the moment. It sets the tone for the rest of the movie, and that isn’t good, especially when you’re left with expectations of the Benny Hill theme over any chase sequence.


The story isn’t developed as well as it could be, especially the villain of the piece. There’s a whole eugenics background that doesn’t quite hit as hard as it should, feels more of an afterthought, and the plot seems lifted from Superman, using the San Andreas fault to engineer a catastrophic earthquake to get rid of Silicon Valley. The real problem is that Roger Moore is just too old for the role. He was too old for the role two movies before this, but you just can’t buy Bond pulling off the stunts he does in this film, when the actor patently can’t match the physicality of his stunt doubles. A View To A Kill tries to compensate by giving him more love interest in this film than he’s had in quite a while. The encounter with Russian agent Pola Ivanova seems thrown in completely at random, and feels like someone stopping the movie to watch something else for a bit. But Bond’s encounter with Mayday... you just want to rescue poor Roger Moore from Grace Jones. It’s not an age thing, it’s a presence thing, as we can still buy Tom Cruise at 60, taking on impossible missions, two years older than Moore was when he made this movie, and his predecessor, Sean Connery was 66, when he effectively revisited Bond in The Rock.


This film also offers the epitome of the Moore era goofiness, with a comical French detective interlude that belongs in a Pink Panther movie, culminating in a destructive car chase that does to a Renault, what happens to all of Sheriff Buford T. Justice’s cars in the Smokey and the Bandit movies. Also, just like Octopussy before it, A View To A Kill has its high stakes climax set piece before the end of the film, when Bond finally catches up with Zorin above the Golden Gate Bridge; a more personal conclusion that feels like an afterthought in comparison.


The shame of it is that Christopher Walken was born to play a Bond movie villain, even if he has to speak the worst line in the film, and screen chemistry with Moore aside, Grace Jones is an epic henchwoman. This wasn’t the movie they deserved. Thankfully, A View To A Kill has one saving grace. You get to see Steed and the Saint on screen together, with Patrick MacNee spying alongside Roger Moore, and it’s delightful fun, one time the humour doesn’t seem out of place in a Roger Moore Bond movie. A View To A Kill is also notable for the big screen debut of Dolph Lundgren. The second worst Bond movie in my estimation gets the best Blu-ray presentation of all of the classic Bonds. That should be an Alanis Morissette lyric.