Runtime:
131 minutes
Directed
by: John Glen
Starring:
Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Patrick
Macnee
From:
UA
Yep,
I have returned, a few hours late but I still returned. I am feeling
fine, all things considered. That is all I'll be saying about what
happened late Monday afternoon. As I mentioned this film when talking
about Skyfall, I figured I should go out of order in talking about
Bond movies by discussing this flick, which many 007 fans rank in the
lower half of all the films.
The
plot: Horse racing, steroids, horses on the juice, and microchips
collide together as Bond runs into Max Zorin (Walken) who is a
product of World War II experimentation by the Nazi's and is
psychotic and yet also happens to be a microchip industrialist. He
concocts an incredible plot to flood Silicon Valley in order to
create a monopoly in his field. He has May Day as a henchwoman (the
one of a kind Jones).
Well,
what an 80's-riffic picture, from the movie making snowboarding
popular because of what 007 does as improvisation during the quality
opening ski scene set in Siberia; I don't know why the movie set that
moment to a cover version of California Girls (done by Gidea Park;
looking on YouTube, they apparently were a group that did cover
medleys of famous 60's artists back in the late 70's and early 80's,
including The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons; the more you know),
but oh well. There's Grace Jones; enough said. Then there's the
awesome Duran Duran title song; the opening credits scene in general
is awesome, come to think of it.
The
movie... it doesn't always seem like a Bond movie. As cool as that
chase scene was involving the fire truck vs. the cops in San
Francisco, to steal a line I heard elsewhere, it seemed like
something you'd expect in a Hal Needham film. You know, like
Cannonball Run, which Moore actually DID appear in, claiming to be
Roger Moore the actor (long story; one of these days I should watch
that movie in order to explain it, but he pretty much &was&
007 there; you can imagine what the Bond producers thought of that).
Then there's the way that Zorin shows how psychotic he is; as soon as
he's done with the minions who enable his diabolical plot to destroy
Silicon Valley... he gleefully guns them down. It probably isn't a
surprise that Moore as an actor did not like that decision by the
filmmakers.
Then,
there's other things, like how Tanya Roberts (Moore romancing her
made him look like a dirty old man due to his advanced age) was a big
ditz and annoying at times, how the horse racing stuff dragged at
times and ultimately did not play too big a part of the plot, and
Moore was just too old for the role at the time. Not to mention, you
briefly see a competing Soviet agent played by Fiona Fullerton who
comes across as real cool but she vanishes out of nowhere and I wish
we could have seen more of her, for sure.
Still,
I say this isn't the worst of the Bond movies in general. Walken was
Walken so it was mostly good. While he wasn't quite Silva from
Skyfall, he was still at least a unique villain who was ahead of his
time in knowing that microchips and computers would be a rather
important thing in the future.There's some action that's pretty good.
When it doesn't drag, it moves at a good pace. And Dolph Lundgren
makes his film debut, appearing in one scene as a bodyguard. He was
dating Jones at the time (what a couple) and he visited the set that
day. They needed an extra extra, so they used him as he certainly
looked the part.
Hilariously,
Papillion Soo Soo has a small role here; she is best known for being
the hooker in Full Metal Jacket who lets the soldiers that “me so
horny” and “me love you long time”. At least this wasn't as
painful an experience as I thought it would be. I'll be back Sunday
night with something different.
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