For Your Eyes Only

mythrenegade

Continuing my journey through the Moore Bond films, I watched For Your Eyes Only tonight.

This movie rights all the wrongs done by Moonraker. A brilliant plot that has you guessing as to who is the good guy and who is the bad guy right up to the point where Bond and Columbo meet on the boat and become friends. A great henchman in Locke. A gorgeous woman in Melinda, and a great villian in Cristatos.

The drag behind the boat scene lifted from Thunderball (the novel, if I remember my books right) is well done, as are the underwater dive scenes. I love the detonator on the diving bell.

I was crushed when the Lotus was blown up, but the citroen made for proper humor james bond style, as opposed to the forced slapstick style humor of Moonraker. The ski scenes are like the skiing from TSWLM, but cranked up a notch or two.

The relationship with Columbo is perfect, the best sidekick for bond since from russia with love. The locations are breathtaking, the monastery stands out as one of the greatest locations in any bond movie. The rock climbing scenes are filled with suspense, and the end of this film with max is classic bond.

I like the throwbacks to OHMSS: The movie opens with Bond at Theresa's grave, puts Blofeld to a final end, replays the chase on the beach with dune buggies, involves a bobsled run etc. These touches enhance the film to me, connecting bond with his earlier style and story after the looney tunes outer space exploits of the prior movie.

This movie isn't perfect. Bibi is disturbing, but to be fair, Bond puts her off continually, as he should. This really doesn't bother me, as there isn't any genuine romance there. The PTS is good, but I rate many others higher. The most significant issue is that Bond could have, and should have, simply set the destruct timer for the ATAC and gotten out of dodge. Since this would have ended the movie very early, it was obviously not the best move plot-wise...

This was the first bond movie I ever saw in the theatre (the first movie I ever saw was LALD on tv), and it is still one of my favorites. After watching it this time, I moved it up to five and dropped LALD to six (these two films have swapped places before). Every time I watch this film I am struck by how great of a performance Roger Moore puts in and what an excellent film this is from start to finish.

Joel

actonsteve

No arguments here. Its my favourite of all the 21 Bond films. It was financially successful as well..

Steed

It is a definite favourite of mine, for sure. It does have Roger's best overall performance- got to love the scene with him kicking the hitman Locque down the mountain, which is an all time great Bond moment imo. The intro at Bond's wife's grave is beautifully judged, and the climactic battle is very tense and exciting, and notably without the big budget pyrotechnics of the previous film. The relationship between Columbo and Kristatos is one of the best written of the series, too.

However, I don't think it's altogether perfect. The first hour of the film, imo, doesn't have a clear direction. The jokier bits of the film (dropping 'bald headed villain' down the chimney, the car chase through the countryside and the ice hockey bit) ALWAYS get a laugh from me, but it makes for a slightly inconsistent experience at times. Bibi Dahl is a pointless character indeed and has no REAL baring on the plot, but I couldn't see why the PC crowd got irked by Bond's relationship with her- he spurns everyone of her advances, with one scene in particular with this bogging down the film for a few minutes. And I dislike the score.

However, there are an abundance of great action set pieces here and Melina Havelock is by far one of the best Bond girl characters. The good outweighs the bad by some difference- this is in such a different class to Moonraker it's unbelievable. The Casino Royale of its day, in some respects.

mythrenegade

The dragged behind the boat scene is lifted from the book Live and Let Die, not Thunderball. I knew that wasn't right after I wrote it, so I looked it up...

Joel

Smoke_13

Hey, FYEO was my first theater Bond as well. I think it was such a huge financial success because I was like all the other pre-teens in my school class who saw it 4 or more times. I couldnt get enough of that movie.

Watching it as a 38 year old man yielded different feelings from me. I just didn't like it as much.

Pros - Story was fair to good, Milina Havlok is a beautiful Bond girl, a lot of action.

Cons - Way too many cheesy scenes...the hockey player attack scene was awful, Blofeld on the helicopter was so obviously a mannequinn, the music in the background during the ski chase was about 1 step up from porn music. -those are 3 quick ones that popped into my head -I'm sure if I dug deeper I would find many more.

Dont get me wrong, I dont hate FYEO, I've just dropped it down on my list. I uh, I'm not sure if I should admit this or not...but I uh, I liked The Man with the Golden Gun better.

Number24

FYEO is my favourite Bond, but Moore is my least favourite Bond. It stretches Moore's dramatic acting abilities to the max.

Double 0 Zero

This is about as good as Moore's Bond films got. I like the relatively minimalist plot line following the "I-will-destroy-the-world" schemes of Stromberg and Drax. The Bond girl was my kind of sexy and the gadgetry was under control. I have some minor reservations. I approved of the PTS dispatching of Blofeld, especially in connection to Tracy's gravesite (a reference to OHMSS sorely lacking in DAF). But parts of the sequence were too light for me; Blofeld offers to buy 007 a delicatessan? The closing gag with Margaret Thatcher just didn't seem funny to me at all. Lynn Holly-Johnson's Bibi was annoying but then I suppose she was meant to be annoying. Overall, it was a big improvement on MR, though, and as I have noted elsewhere FYEO is a virtual tie with TSWLM for best of Moore's Bonds.

jrdoo7

i garee wiht i just watched this myself. this movie is a good companion piece with frwl. i put this one behind frwl.

jrdoo7

the delicatensen of stainless steel line according the the roger moore commentry that was cubby's line. according to roger they 6 other lines they tried out. what they are i don't know

Klaus Hergescheimer

FYEO is, IMO, by far the best Moore film. I watched it recently, and I noticed just how terrific of a job Moore does in the film. I saw how serious he could be as Bond, which was great. If he had played Bond in every other film the way he played it in FYEO, he would be up there with Craig, Dalton, and Connery, in my book.

Double 0 Zero

jrdoo7 wrote:

the delicatensen of stainless steel line according the the roger moore commentry that was cubby's line. according to roger they 6 other lines they tried out. what they are i don't know

I can count my blessings. The joke might have been worse! Still, while I don't like some of the humor in most Bond films, I have to be reasonable. The Bond franchise is a highly commercial product and the mass audience has usually expected wisecracks, double entendres and goofy visual gags. These aren't art films, after all, and we wouldn't have the pleasure of a long history of adventures if EON hadn't taken public demand into consideration.

jrdoo7

i think it depends on which bond film you see. some have more than others.

Andy362

I'm not a fan of For Your Eyes Only. I like the plot, but it just turns into a boring film IMO, like a few Bond films.

Cristatos is a bad villain in my opinion, and it has plenty of annoying characters (special mention to Bibi or whatever the hell she's called) and although Moore doesn't look terribly old, I still hate watching older actors play Bond.

That doesn't mean to say there isn't any good scenes though. The PTS is very good but doesn't really follow the story of the film, but there's the terrific boat scene.

Steed

I watched this again the other day. I must say, the only part in this film I think sags is the underwater scene where Bond and Melina are looking for clues. I hate those drawn out water scenes which bogged down Thunderball so much.

Double 0 Zero

Steed wrote:

I watched this again the other day. I must say, the only part in this film I think sags is the underwater scene where Bond and Melina are looking for clues. I hate those drawn out water scenes which bogged down Thunderball so much.

You'd think people who make action movies would avoid using them; under water, everyone moves in s-l-o-w-w-w motion.

Wadsy

Even though Timothy Dalton has and will always be my favorite Bond actor, For Your Eyes Only is my favourite of all the Bond films.

John Glen stepped up from second-unit director to the directors chair which he would helm up to and including Licence To Kill. It is an almost perfect film which sends everything back to basics after the campy Moonraker in '79. Roger Moore came back for a fifth time even though other actors such as Timothy Dalton were selected to possibly replace him on this film for a new decade. Nevertheless, Moore came back and gave his most serious performance he had ever done throughout his seven film Bond career. Bernard Lee unfortunately was too sick and died in January 1981 so instead, Bill Tanner took over his role and the minister of defense returned for his third appearance. Walter Gotel would reprise his role as General Gogol head of the KGB for his third consecutive out of six films.

PRO's:

- Nice honourable mention to Tracey Bond at the beginning of the film
- Bill Conti's score is excellent and my favourite of the entire series, followed closely by John Barry's scores for A View To A Kill and The Living Daylights.
- Loved Roger Moore's down to earth and serious performance
- Villain Kristatos, although not the best was very entertaining to see. The conflict between him and Columbo was groundbreaking
- Milos Columbo is Bond's best ally since Kerim Bey in From Russia With Love.
- Melina Havelock is terrific, but whether she is the best Bond girl? Could be.. It's either her or Diana Rigg.
- The Ski Sequence, the car chase and the mountain climbing scenes were PERFECT
- The casino scene was amazing, between Bond and Kristatos
- The Albania Warehouse raid was terrific, feels like a cold war spy thriller (This could have been a Dalton film*)
- The underwater sequences, although long were really well filmed and staged. Brilliant.
- Bond and Q scene with the identigraph
- Bond meets Kristatos and Bibi Dahl at the ice rink
- The final scene between Melina and Bond
- The return of the Lotus Esprit Turbo
- The ice rink hockey players scene
- This feels like a real 80's film
- My favourite aspect - The locations. Best of all the Bond films - Spain, but especially Cortina and Corfu, Greece

Con's:

- PTS , while I like it, Blofeld deserved a better way out and a proper revenge story
- Kristatos needed more screentime
- Underwater scenes were a little too long

Those minor gripes aside, FYEO is my favourite installment in the series.