♥♥♥♥♥
 |
| Agent 007 stands assured by a glamorous blonde high up on San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge on this wonderfully drawn and painted poster for John Glen's A View to a Kill |
A dope-using race horse court owner has himself been manipulated by some ugly Nazi doctors and really plans to flood California's Silicon Valley and monopolize the microchip market. Obviously this is a case for Great Britain's #1 spy, agent 007, James Bond!
A View to a Kill is written by Richard Maibaum (Goldfinger (1964)) and Michael G. Wilson (For Your Eyes Only (1981)) and directed by great British filmmaker John Glen (For Your Eyes Only (1981)), whose 3rd Bond film it is. Overall it is the 14th in the Bond franchise, with a title drawn from Ian Fleming's (Thrilling Cities (1963)) short story From a View to a Kill (1960), but the script is entirely original.
Scores of critics - seemingly including the late Roger Moore (Ivanhoe (1958-59)) himself - think that the film is a tacky, awful Bond film with a dinosaur lead, but personally, I think it's a terrifically entertaining film, possibly one of the best Bond films ever, and certainly Moore's best. It is his 7th and last as the agent, which he has portrayed more times than any of the long-running franchise's other 5 starring actors.
Christopher Walken (Domino (2005)) and Grace Jones (Conan the Destroyer (1984)) are a villain couple from heaven; sexy and wild; and Duran Duran's title song is eminent and is used extensively in the film's beautiful score by Bond-regular John Barry (Chaplin (1992)).
The action scenes and locations are spectacular and fun, and the film is especially be a treat for anyone with a penchant for the 1980s on screen. Lois Maxwell (Age of Innocence (1977)) plays Miss Moneypenny for the last time in the film, and Dolph Lundgren (War Pigs (2015)), then boyfriend of Jones, has a tiny part, his first credit.
Forget the badmouthing this film has received and still does: A View to a Kill was a world smash and is still a colorful, fun, exciting and excellent action-adventure movie!
Related posts:
Bond franchise: Spectre (2015) - Mendes' second Bond delivers
Skyfall (2012) - Mendes elevates a slickly produced modern Bond to thrilling heights
Die Another Day (2002) - Tamahori makes a thrilling, grand piece of Bond escapism
For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Glen debuts with wacky, action-packed Roger Moore Bond
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - Connery's last Bond adventure is a colorful romp
Goldfinger (1964) - The 007 template gets perfected in fabulously entertaining third spectacle
From Russia with Love (1963) - Several remarkable elements make Young's 2nd Bond an enduring classic
Dr. No (1962) - Bond # 1 is one attractive package
Top 10: Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Diamonds Are Forever (1971) - Connery's last Bond adventure is a colorful romp
John Glen: Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) - The ill-fated but entertaining ensemble adventure
Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
A View to a Kill (1985) or, Once a Gentleman, Always a Gentleman!
For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Glen debuts with wacky, action-packed Roger Moore Bond
Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 152.4 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 5.08 times its cost)
[A View to a Kill premiered 22 May (San Francisco, USA) and runs 131 minutes. David Bowie and Sting were approached to play the Max Zorin part eventually played by Walken. Shooting took place from June 1984 - January 1985 in Switzerland, England, France, including Paris and in California, including San Francisco. A stuntman was fired in Paris, when he parachuted from the Eiffel Tower without authorization from city authorities, because he was disappointed another stuntman was used for the film's Eiffel Tower jump scene. Glen has said that the film went two weeks over schedule but was made 5 mil. $ under budget. Duran Duran were hired to write the theme song, after the group's bassist John Taylor had teased producer Albert Broccoli at a party; "When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs?" It was the first Bond theme song to reach #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Rambo: First Blood Part II, to a 10.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for another 4 weeks (#2-#3-#4-#5) and grossed 50.3 mil. $ (33 % of the total gross) from 14.1 mil. admissions. The international gross numbers are regrettably not released. Many critics lashed out at Moore's age, 57 at the time, including the first Bond, Sean Connery, and eventually Moore agreed: In 2007 he remarked; "I was only about four hundred years too old for the part." The film was nominated for a Golden Globe. Glen returned with The Living Daylights (1987), the next Bond movie; he would end his Bond turn after one more; License to Kill (1989). Moore returned with a voice performance in The Magic Snowman (1987) and theatrically in Fire, Ice & Dynamite (1990). A View to a Kill is rotten at 38 % with a 4.96/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of A View to a Kill?
No comments:
Post a Comment