All I know is the original title of the short story created by Ian Fleming, was "From A View To A Kill".
The film is called "A View To A Kill".
The fact that the filmakers changed it, I'm not bothered about it.
They could have called the film anything they liked. I just thought I would highlight the difference, and there has been a great responce.
Maybe the next film will be called "007 in Manchester"
I fear the next Bond film will get a title like "007", "James Bond" or "James", following the trend for sequels named after the main character. After all, we just got "Jason Bourne" and there's the upcoming sequel to "The Wolverine" titled "Logan".
How did Zorin get to SF from France , airship would take waaaaaaay to long time , perhaps a rented plane ?
Strange that the video cameras didn't notice him and his buddies walking into city hall with gas cans...most guards would find this suspicious , maybe someone inside turned them off :v
All I know is the original title of the short story created by Ian Fleming, was "From A View To A Kill".
The film is called "A View To A Kill".
The fact that the filmakers changed it, I'm not bothered about it.
They could have called the film anything they liked. I just thought I would highlight the difference, and there has been a great responce.
Maybe the next film will be called "007 in Manchester"
I fear the next Bond film will get a title like "007", "James Bond" or "James", following the trend for sequels named after the main character. After all, we just got "Jason Bourne" and there's the upcoming sequel to "The Wolverine" titled "Logan".
This is really a trend I can't stand and it baffles me how these astonishingly trite titles get accepted. Are audiences really that dense they need the titles simplified they know what character they're seeing in a well established franchise?
I actually remember not finding out AVTAK's title had been shortened until I saw the TV spots.
Pros:
.Roger is too old but he's still great.
.The theme song is one of the best. The title sequence is mind boggling. The score is my second favorite.
.Awesome villains.
.Paris and San Francisco. I'm not far from SF so seeing Bond there is really cool to me. And a lot of my family are into horses. So its almost sentimental. )
.Tanya is annoying but hot.
.It foreshadows the violence of LTK.
."No one ever leaves the KGB".
.The fight on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Cons:
.Roger's botched facelift.
.Tanya Roberts scream.
.Bond + Mayday= horror
.The fight in the warehouse.
How did Zorin get to SF from France , airship would take waaaaaaay to long time , perhaps a rented plane ?
lol... You make a very good point actually. Meh, I just accept it as it is. I love A View To A Kill and rank it almost as high as Goldfinger in my rankings because, despite the flaws it may have, the things I love in AVTAK are just too many.
If I were Zorin I would not take a commercial plane due to leaving evidence/paper trail , I would also NOT paint my airship with the company logo
....and where exactly was Zorin going after the bomb blew up , north of SF ?
Would it be possible to gun Bond down from the airship , I guess it depends on the wind and somebody would have to hold Zorin...then again I'm sure that he thought that Bond would smack into the bridge and fall to his death or eventually tire and fall from the mooring rope.
Watching this as I speak.
Another pro is the scenes of Bond and Tibet undercover. The hell Bond puts him through is hilarious. Especially the umbrella bit. Thank you sir.
-{
con: this film feels unbalanced because of what we now call "stunt-casting"
Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, Patrick McNee, one of Charlies Angels cast as the Bondgirl
I don't think any previous Bondfilm had been so dominated by known celebrities, and its one aspect that takes me right out of the story
perhaps it was an 80s thing, something to do with the rise of MTV culture? yet the two Dalton films went back to using relative unknowns
then starting with Brosnan they have relied on big known stars ever since, which is one aspect I find makes the newer films seem forced and artificial
(gotta say though, the McNee part is in and of itself one of the big pro's of this film, and as funny as the comic rapport is, within the story, it just gets better when you realise its a Simon Templar/John Steed teamup)
Actually, I don't mind it.
On Dalton, Benicio Del Toro was put on the map by Licence To Kill.
What really sent me over the edge was Madonna, no doubt. Lovely singer, terrible actress. Die Another Day was full of celebrity appearances.
At the very least Walken, Grace and Tanya can act (some better than others).
Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, Patrick McNee, one of Charlies Angels cast as the Bondgirl
Honestly, with the exception of Walken, my only exposure to those other stars is AVTAK.
Great cast…one of the very best in the series. -{
Same here. Casting a Charlie's Angel as a Bond girl (and a lesser known Angel at that) is similar to casting two Avengers as Bond girls in the 1960s. Casting another Avenger in AVTAK is the same.
I posted a long reply that got lost, but the gist is:
its not one character being played by a known celebrity, it's all four key supporting characters: chief villain, henchman, bondgirl, and chief ally
the effect is cumulative and undermines suspension of disbelief, instead drawing attention to the artifice of filmmaking
Walken wasn't rent a villain then, few teens would have seen The Deerhunter etc.
Fewer would know of Macnee in The Avengers. Or SS from Charlies'
Not saying that wouldn't be a factor now, just not sure it was then. I mean Grace Jones isn't any worse than VJ Amitrage in OP I'd have thought, and having Bowie as Zorin would have made it worse!
as you say the effect could be in hindsight, and I never got round to seeing this one til years later
but you're right Bowie would have been much worse and that would have been Lets Dance era Bowie to boot Station to Station era Bowie might have made a better villain
anyways we all keep saying Walken, McNee, and Jones, ie the actors names, but Stacy Sutton is the characters name ... the actress is Tanya Roberts, and she is now better known as Donna's mom from That Seventies Show! so if you were thinking "I never watched that era of Charlie Angels so it doesn't affect my suspension of disbelief", well you probably did watch That Seventies Show so now you'll have to be distracted by that connection!
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
as you say the effect could be in hindsight, and I never got round to seeing this one til years later
but you're right Bowie would have been much worse and that would have been Lets Dance era Bowie to boot Station to Station era Bowie might have made a better villain
anyways we all keep saying Walken, McNee, and Jones, ie the actors names, but Stacy Sutton is the characters name ... the actress is Tanya Roberts, and she is now better known as Donna's mom from That Seventies Show! so if you were thinking "I never watched that era of Charlie Angels so it doesn't affect my suspension of disbelief", well you probably did watch That Seventies Show so now you'll have to be distracted by that connection!
When Charlie's Angels lost Shelley Hack, who in turn was the replacement for Kate Jackson, I saw Tanya Roberts in an episode of Vegas and was so smitten by her and thought, she'd be perfect as the newest Angel and later that season, she was indeed cast in the show! I loved her in everything I saw her in, in Sheena, That 70's Show and her Playboy spread!
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
well you probably did watch That Seventies Show so now you'll have to be distracted by that connection!
Well, (if I remember correctly), in That 70's show Donna and other characters frequently refer to Charlie's Angels. If it is any accurate then the '85 audience must've been distracted by her as they had seen the show.
well you probably did watch That Seventies Show so now you'll have to be distracted by that connection!
Well, (if I remember correctly), in That 70's show Donna and other characters frequently refer to Charlie's Angels. If it is any accurate then the '85 audience must've been distracted by her as they had seen the show.
If it were Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith or Cheryl Ladd, they would have been distracted by knowing them as Angels. I don't think very many people would have had that problem with Roberts. She was only there in the final season in the 1980s, which few people watched. I'm sure a lot more people were distracted by Simon Templar or Mr Steele playing James Bond.
I'm sure a lot more people were distracted by Simon Templar or Mr Steele playing James Bond.
Even for The Saint, I had to dig pretty hard to familiarize myself with that series. Imported a complete Box Set from the UK and then bought a multi-region DVD player to watch them on.
I've never seen Remington Steel….I guess I just don't want a lot of TV.
My current 10 favorite:
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
...Tanya Roberts ... I loved her in everything I saw her in, in Sheena, That 70's Show and her Playboy spread!
!!! I didn't realise she'd done Sheena Queen of the Jungle? as a fan of old comics, I am intrigued ... but as much as I'd like to see her fill out a leopard skin bikini real nice (to paraphrase Bob Pinciatti) I can't imagine her playing the character, at least not based on her performances as Stacy Sutton or Donna's mom
Ursulla Andress I could, since Honey Rider was a "girl Tarzan" and Ursula definitely looked the part
Tanya Roberts is just too delicate looking, and the parts I've seen her in she is kind of whiny and dependant, so she better be more versatile than that
there was a Sheena tv series in the 1950s. I've never seen it, but the actress then was Irish McCalla, and based on photos, she did look the part
somehow I forgot to watch this one as i worked my way through the Moore films last summer.
by coincidence, this one is the first one I skipped at the theatre when it came out. I didnt see it til i got a dvd player in the early 2000s.
pros:
-Walken/Zorin: watch his reaction shots, as Roger delivers some pretty generic setup lines, each time Zorin follows with a quick sequence of successive facial expressions before settling into something inappropriate and weird.
The scene where he machine-guns his own men may be the evillest and most violent act of any Bond villain ever. I'm not sure I believe he would betray MayDay (she was like a test-tube sister to him) but it sure does add to his arbitrary amoral nature.
He's kind of like Heath Ledger's Joker, he even tells us he's making it up as he goes along when he shoots the mayor. Yet he is able to formulate and execute longterm plans.
-MacNee/Tibbett: he's not quite Steed, he's older and fatter and wheezing, and Steed would never have put up with Bond's abuse without getting in a much wittier putdown of his own.
The first time I watched this, I didn't recognise Tibbet was the former John Steed and wondered why the character was dominating the first half of the movie and stealing laughs. Usually these expert-types get one line in M's office then they disappear, but this one goes on the mission with our hero. I think you have to be in on the joke to appreciate his scenes.
-Barry's back.
-Gogol's back, and he gives Bond a medal. He gets more lines than M.
-geology based scheme. similar to fracking actually, which we now know causes earthquakes. Regardless of how many microchips would have got lost, there is a concentration of top tech talent in that valley who would have died in the flood, changing the course of the economy as we know it today.
-bits of three Gardner books get adapted, unofficially, so that nice.
-Fleming's story might have got chucked, but I'm now convinced the stable scenes are a loose adaptation of the Saratoga chapters from Diamonds are Forever. In Fleming's book, the Spangs substituted a much better horse (a ringer) to manipulate the betting results, and Leiter was independently investigating when Bond showed up. In this film, Zorin is injecting horses from inferior bloodlines with steroids to win races they had been predicted to lose, and Tibbett has been independently investigating.
That's at least as close as most of the official Fleming adaptations during the Moore era.
Also there's one scene almost identical to Goldfinger (in the book, the hood who walks out of the meeting is said to have fallen down a flight of stairs, and so did his bodyguard), and I think the quiche may be an adaptation of the Scrambled Eggs recipe from 007 in New York, updated to the 1980s.
-Two of my favourite Moore-era action sequences: the elevator sequence, including the preceding scene in the mayor's office, and the finale with the hot-air balloon and Golden Gate bridge. Both are very suspenseful.
-the mine sequence. Aside from Zorin's evil, I realised this is one of those incredibly huge stagesets like the tanker interior, and they spend a good chunk of time exploring all the spaces before it gets flooded. More huge stagesets with hundreds of minions please!
-I don't mind Stacy Sutton screaming. Those are situations when a scream is appropriate, and Bond does appear to abandon her in that elevator shaft.
-I'm ok with Mayday's sex scene. MooreBond is getting on a bit in years, so to quote the great Cosmo Kramer "why not let her do all the work". Her muscles sure do gleam as she settles into position and begins her first grind. Bond should have been walking funny and complaining about all his aches and bruises the next day when he met Tibbet, though, that'd make it better.
cons:
-throws out a perfectly good Fleming story. maybe there's no dispatch riders anymore, but in the mid80s bike couriers were becoming a big thing (classic twentysomething job). Fleming's story should have somehow made up the first act of the film, as was done with the previous film and would happen with the next film, then it could spin out somehow to lead to Zorin's evil scheme.
-gets the title wrong. and in doing so anticipates some of the Brosnan era titles where they just didn't care as long as it had the word Die or Kill.
-Duran Duran. Sorry I never liked them back in the day, and still those gated drums and staccato synth trumpets bug the heck outa me. They shoulda got Grace jones to deliver the title track, maybe with a Sly and Robbie rhythm section, that's some 80s music I could stand. c'mon, James Bond is Jamaican, let's use the Jamaican talent.
-in general there is a glossy 80s/MTV aesthetic that is not just distracting, but undermines the aging regular cast. Moneypenny and Q and Tibbett and M and the minister all look about thirty years too old for this film. And since MooreBond is their contemporary the conspicuous contrast forces me to assume our star has been paying for some plastic surgery.
-Grace Jones, I love her music and her modelling work, but she is not a good actress and I do not believe her sex scene with Bond, or her choice to switch sides and sacrifice herself.
-the new M makes zero impression. There are so many people in his office, and he gets the least lines of any of them. It's like he has no control over what goes on in his own office. You know Bernard Lee would have shown who was chairing that meeting.
-showoff MooreBond cuts off Q to explain what a microchip is, and Q lets him do it. Then he explains to Tibbett how the steroids are being injected even though Tibbett is the one investigating that aspect of the case. There's gotta be a word like mansplaining for this bad habit of MooreBond (specifically). MooreBondSplaining?
At least he lets Stacy explain about the geology.
-Pola Ivanova: another stunning 80s beauty, but her scene is a digression and is mostly irrelevant. If Barbara Bach had returned this would have made the subplot so much better (and a nice reprise for the final film of the Moore era).
Do they have their sex in a rent-by-the-hour hot-tub storefront?
-Q's perv-cam. Watch his face, there is no misunderstanding, he is trying to sneak a peak and vicariously experience Bond's sexlife. Compare with the previous film where a real live woman hugs and kisses him and he turns her down. He likes to watch.
You know if Q hadn't tracked him down, M and Gogol would have assumed Bond had died at Golden Gate Bridge? body washed out to sea, no point in searching. Meaning MooreBond, in his last film, had a chance to quietly escape this dirty damn business just like FlemingBond in You Only Live Twice, except Q's damn perv-cam ruined his chance.
By coincidence, I found a copy of an odd paperback tie-in called Find Your Fate: Strike it Deadly
(ref 1, ref 2)
This film didn't get a novelisation, even though it was almost entirely original. But it got a set of four Find Your Fate books, which were like children's books where you make a choice and are sent to a different page to find out what happens next, meaning there are multiple possible outcomes. Anticipating the video game tie-ins that would appear a decade later.
How do the video games and Find Your Fate books rank in The Canon?
Walken wasn't a bad guy in Dead Zone but his character was certainly mentally unstable when he was gonna shoot the would-be US president
I liked Bowies performance in "mr Lawrence" and vampire flick The Hunger , I'm sure he would've been decent. Still Walken was amazing imo :v
Walken was also great in Poolhall Junkies and the film he starred in with Johnny Depp where he kidknaps his daughter to make his kill a presidential candidate.
"You're in the wrong business... leave it to the professionals!"
James Bond- Licence To Kill
Re-watched this. I wish I liked it more, as Rog is great in it, I think he gives one of his very best 007 performances here.
My criticisms:
- Stacey Sutton's screaming.
- Moore's ooohs.
- The awkward/weird May Day kissing Zorin and having sex with Bond.
- Ivanova's Tchaikovsky line
- The scene when Zorin has a guy killed for not wanting to be part of his plan clearly rips off GF
The movie certainly has good aspects and isn't terrible, but it didn't grow on this latest viewing.
"Hostile takeovers. Shall we?"
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
Comments
The film is called "A View To A Kill".
The fact that the filmakers changed it, I'm not bothered about it.
They could have called the film anything they liked. I just thought I would highlight the difference, and there has been a great responce.
Maybe the next film will be called "007 in Manchester"
"Do you expect me to talk? "No Mister Bond I expect you to die"
I fear the next Bond film will get a title like "007", "James Bond" or "James", following the trend for sequels named after the main character. After all, we just got "Jason Bourne" and there's the upcoming sequel to "The Wolverine" titled "Logan".
Strange that the video cameras didn't notice him and his buddies walking into city hall with gas cans...most guards would find this suspicious , maybe someone inside turned them off :v
This is really a trend I can't stand and it baffles me how these astonishingly trite titles get accepted. Are audiences really that dense they need the titles simplified they know what character they're seeing in a well established franchise?
I actually remember not finding out AVTAK's title had been shortened until I saw the TV spots.
Pros:
.Roger is too old but he's still great.
.The theme song is one of the best. The title sequence is mind boggling. The score is my second favorite.
.Awesome villains.
.Paris and San Francisco. I'm not far from SF so seeing Bond there is really cool to me. And a lot of my family are into horses. So its almost sentimental.
.Tanya is annoying but hot.
.It foreshadows the violence of LTK.
."No one ever leaves the KGB".
.The fight on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Cons:
.Roger's botched facelift.
.Tanya Roberts scream.
.Bond + Mayday=
.The fight in the warehouse.
Can't help but enjoy it.
8/10 -{
lol... You make a very good point actually. Meh, I just accept it as it is. I love A View To A Kill and rank it almost as high as Goldfinger in my rankings because, despite the flaws it may have, the things I love in AVTAK are just too many.
1. Dalton 2. Moore 3. Connery 4. Lazenby 5. Craig 6. Brosnan
....and where exactly was Zorin going after the bomb blew up , north of SF ?
Would it be possible to gun Bond down from the airship , I guess it depends on the wind and somebody would have to hold Zorin...then again I'm sure that he thought that Bond would smack into the bridge and fall to his death or eventually tire and fall from the mooring rope.
Another pro is the scenes of Bond and Tibet undercover. The hell Bond puts him through is hilarious. Especially the umbrella bit. Thank you sir.
-{
I'm happiest.....ON youtube
Christopher Walken, Grace Jones, Patrick McNee, one of Charlies Angels cast as the Bondgirl
I don't think any previous Bondfilm had been so dominated by known celebrities, and its one aspect that takes me right out of the story
perhaps it was an 80s thing, something to do with the rise of MTV culture? yet the two Dalton films went back to using relative unknowns
then starting with Brosnan they have relied on big known stars ever since, which is one aspect I find makes the newer films seem forced and artificial
(gotta say though, the McNee part is in and of itself one of the big pro's of this film, and as funny as the comic rapport is, within the story, it just gets better when you realise its a Simon Templar/John Steed teamup)
"Better make that two."
On Dalton, Benicio Del Toro was put on the map by Licence To Kill.
What really sent me over the edge was Madonna, no doubt. Lovely singer, terrible actress. Die Another Day was full of celebrity appearances.
At the very least Walken, Grace and Tanya can act (some better than others).
Honestly, with the exception of Walken, my only exposure to those other stars is AVTAK.
Great cast…one of the very best in the series. -{
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
Zorin party girl that was killed by her husband.
Second from left. I never knew this happened to her in 2008. So very sad.
Same here. Casting a Charlie's Angel as a Bond girl (and a lesser known Angel at that) is similar to casting two Avengers as Bond girls in the 1960s. Casting another Avenger in AVTAK is the same.
its not one character being played by a known celebrity, it's all four key supporting characters: chief villain, henchman, bondgirl, and chief ally
the effect is cumulative and undermines suspension of disbelief, instead drawing attention to the artifice of filmmaking
Fewer would know of Macnee in The Avengers. Or SS from Charlies'
Not saying that wouldn't be a factor now, just not sure it was then. I mean Grace Jones isn't any worse than VJ Amitrage in OP I'd have thought, and having Bowie as Zorin would have made it worse!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
but you're right Bowie would have been much worse and that would have been Lets Dance era Bowie to boot
Station to Station era Bowie might have made a better villain
anyways we all keep saying Walken, McNee, and Jones, ie the actors names, but Stacy Sutton is the characters name ... the actress is Tanya Roberts, and she is now better known as Donna's mom from That Seventies Show! so if you were thinking "I never watched that era of Charlie Angels so it doesn't affect my suspension of disbelief", well you probably did watch That Seventies Show so now you'll have to be distracted by that connection!
When Charlie's Angels lost Shelley Hack, who in turn was the replacement for Kate Jackson, I saw Tanya Roberts in an episode of Vegas and was so smitten by her and thought, she'd be perfect as the newest Angel and later that season, she was indeed cast in the show! I loved her in everything I saw her in, in Sheena, That 70's Show and her Playboy spread!
If it were Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith or Cheryl Ladd, they would have been distracted by knowing them as Angels. I don't think very many people would have had that problem with Roberts. She was only there in the final season in the 1980s, which few people watched. I'm sure a lot more people were distracted by Simon Templar or Mr Steele playing James Bond.
Even for The Saint, I had to dig pretty hard to familiarize myself with that series. Imported a complete Box Set from the UK and then bought a multi-region DVD player to watch them on.
I've never seen Remington Steel….I guess I just don't want a lot of TV.
1. GE 2. MR 3. OP 4. TMWTGG 5. TSWLM 6. TND 7. TWINE 8.DN 9. GF 10. AVTAK
I liked Bowies performance in "mr Lawrence" and vampire flick The Hunger , I'm sure he would've been decent. Still Walken was amazing imo :v
Ursulla Andress I could, since Honey Rider was a "girl Tarzan" and Ursula definitely looked the part
Tanya Roberts is just too delicate looking, and the parts I've seen her in she is kind of whiny and dependant, so she better be more versatile than that
there was a Sheena tv series in the 1950s. I've never seen it, but the actress then was Irish McCalla, and based on photos, she did look the part
by coincidence, this one is the first one I skipped at the theatre when it came out. I didnt see it til i got a dvd player in the early 2000s.
pros:
-Walken/Zorin: watch his reaction shots, as Roger delivers some pretty generic setup lines, each time Zorin follows with a quick sequence of successive facial expressions before settling into something inappropriate and weird.
The scene where he machine-guns his own men may be the evillest and most violent act of any Bond villain ever. I'm not sure I believe he would betray MayDay (she was like a test-tube sister to him) but it sure does add to his arbitrary amoral nature.
He's kind of like Heath Ledger's Joker, he even tells us he's making it up as he goes along when he shoots the mayor. Yet he is able to formulate and execute longterm plans.
-MacNee/Tibbett: he's not quite Steed, he's older and fatter and wheezing, and Steed would never have put up with Bond's abuse without getting in a much wittier putdown of his own.
The first time I watched this, I didn't recognise Tibbet was the former John Steed and wondered why the character was dominating the first half of the movie and stealing laughs. Usually these expert-types get one line in M's office then they disappear, but this one goes on the mission with our hero. I think you have to be in on the joke to appreciate his scenes.
-Barry's back.
-Gogol's back, and he gives Bond a medal. He gets more lines than M.
-geology based scheme. similar to fracking actually, which we now know causes earthquakes. Regardless of how many microchips would have got lost, there is a concentration of top tech talent in that valley who would have died in the flood, changing the course of the economy as we know it today.
-bits of three Gardner books get adapted, unofficially, so that nice.
-Fleming's story might have got chucked, but I'm now convinced the stable scenes are a loose adaptation of the Saratoga chapters from Diamonds are Forever. In Fleming's book, the Spangs substituted a much better horse (a ringer) to manipulate the betting results, and Leiter was independently investigating when Bond showed up. In this film, Zorin is injecting horses from inferior bloodlines with steroids to win races they had been predicted to lose, and Tibbett has been independently investigating.
That's at least as close as most of the official Fleming adaptations during the Moore era.
Also there's one scene almost identical to Goldfinger (in the book, the hood who walks out of the meeting is said to have fallen down a flight of stairs, and so did his bodyguard), and I think the quiche may be an adaptation of the Scrambled Eggs recipe from 007 in New York, updated to the 1980s.
-Two of my favourite Moore-era action sequences: the elevator sequence, including the preceding scene in the mayor's office, and the finale with the hot-air balloon and Golden Gate bridge. Both are very suspenseful.
-the mine sequence. Aside from Zorin's evil, I realised this is one of those incredibly huge stagesets like the tanker interior, and they spend a good chunk of time exploring all the spaces before it gets flooded. More huge stagesets with hundreds of minions please!
-I don't mind Stacy Sutton screaming. Those are situations when a scream is appropriate, and Bond does appear to abandon her in that elevator shaft.
-I'm ok with Mayday's sex scene. MooreBond is getting on a bit in years, so to quote the great Cosmo Kramer "why not let her do all the work". Her muscles sure do gleam as she settles into position and begins her first grind. Bond should have been walking funny and complaining about all his aches and bruises the next day when he met Tibbet, though, that'd make it better.
cons:
-throws out a perfectly good Fleming story. maybe there's no dispatch riders anymore, but in the mid80s bike couriers were becoming a big thing (classic twentysomething job). Fleming's story should have somehow made up the first act of the film, as was done with the previous film and would happen with the next film, then it could spin out somehow to lead to Zorin's evil scheme.
-gets the title wrong. and in doing so anticipates some of the Brosnan era titles where they just didn't care as long as it had the word Die or Kill.
-Duran Duran. Sorry I never liked them back in the day, and still those gated drums and staccato synth trumpets bug the heck outa me. They shoulda got Grace jones to deliver the title track, maybe with a Sly and Robbie rhythm section, that's some 80s music I could stand. c'mon, James Bond is Jamaican, let's use the Jamaican talent.
-in general there is a glossy 80s/MTV aesthetic that is not just distracting, but undermines the aging regular cast. Moneypenny and Q and Tibbett and M and the minister all look about thirty years too old for this film. And since MooreBond is their contemporary the conspicuous contrast forces me to assume our star has been paying for some plastic surgery.
-Grace Jones, I love her music and her modelling work, but she is not a good actress and I do not believe her sex scene with Bond, or her choice to switch sides and sacrifice herself.
-the new M makes zero impression. There are so many people in his office, and he gets the least lines of any of them. It's like he has no control over what goes on in his own office. You know Bernard Lee would have shown who was chairing that meeting.
-showoff MooreBond cuts off Q to explain what a microchip is, and Q lets him do it. Then he explains to Tibbett how the steroids are being injected even though Tibbett is the one investigating that aspect of the case. There's gotta be a word like mansplaining for this bad habit of MooreBond (specifically). MooreBondSplaining?
At least he lets Stacy explain about the geology.
-Pola Ivanova: another stunning 80s beauty, but her scene is a digression and is mostly irrelevant. If Barbara Bach had returned this would have made the subplot so much better (and a nice reprise for the final film of the Moore era).
Do they have their sex in a rent-by-the-hour hot-tub storefront?
-Q's perv-cam. Watch his face, there is no misunderstanding, he is trying to sneak a peak and vicariously experience Bond's sexlife. Compare with the previous film where a real live woman hugs and kisses him and he turns her down. He likes to watch.
You know if Q hadn't tracked him down, M and Gogol would have assumed Bond had died at Golden Gate Bridge? body washed out to sea, no point in searching. Meaning MooreBond, in his last film, had a chance to quietly escape this dirty damn business just like FlemingBond in You Only Live Twice, except Q's damn perv-cam ruined his chance.
By coincidence, I found a copy of an odd paperback tie-in called Find Your Fate: Strike it Deadly
(ref 1, ref 2)
This film didn't get a novelisation, even though it was almost entirely original. But it got a set of four Find Your Fate books, which were like children's books where you make a choice and are sent to a different page to find out what happens next, meaning there are multiple possible outcomes. Anticipating the video game tie-ins that would appear a decade later.
How do the video games and Find Your Fate books rank in The Canon?
Walken was also great in Poolhall Junkies and the film he starred in with Johnny Depp where he kidknaps his daughter to make his kill a presidential candidate.
James Bond- Licence To Kill
My criticisms:
- Stacey Sutton's screaming.
- Moore's ooohs.
- The awkward/weird May Day kissing Zorin and having sex with Bond.
- Ivanova's Tchaikovsky line
- The scene when Zorin has a guy killed for not wanting to be part of his plan clearly rips off GF
The movie certainly has good aspects and isn't terrible, but it didn't grow on this latest viewing.
New 2020 ranking (for now DAF and FYEO keep their previous placements)
1. TLD 2. TND 3. GF 4. TSWLM 5. TWINE 6. OHMSS 7. LtK 8. TMWTGG 9. L&LD 10. YOLT 11. DAD 12. QoS 13. DN 14. GE 15. SF 16. OP 17. MR 18. AVTAK 19. TB 20. FRWL 21. CR 22. FYEO 23. DAF (SP to be included later)
Bond actors to be re-ranked later
Homage to Goldfinger
Although I do have a soft
Spot for it.