For Your Eyes Only (1981) - Glen debuts with wacky, action-packed Roger Moore Bond

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The action-surrounded pair of firm, tanned female legs wearing a bikini bottom backwards, with Roger Moore's 007 centered, make up this effective poster for John Glen's For Your Eyes Only

SPOILER Bond villain par excellence, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is killed by getting dumped into a chimney in the title sequence. The story thereafter circles around the sinking of a British ship.

- Maybe, it could be added with some confused doubt, because the link between the ship, the wacky action and kitschy love scenes are never more than precarious. 
For Your Eyes Only is the 12th film in the Bond franchise, written by Richard Maibaum (Zarak (1956)) and Michael G. Wilson (The Living Daylights (1983)), based on two short stories from Ian Fleming's (Moonraker (1955)) For Your Eyes Only (1960) story collection, and directed by debuting John Glen (The Point Men (2001)), who had previously served as editor on 3 Bond pictures.
Roger Moore (Paper Orchid (1949)) does fine as the gold-lined spy, whom he portrays for his fifth time here, but the film nearly works as a Bond spoof in itself, - it is that silly. Charles Dance (Your Highness (2011)) is a minor villain, and the funny final scene has British prime minister Margaret Thatcher talking to a parrot.
For Your Eyes Only is funny and features lots of well-made action, (as well as down-played, dull sets, as regular Bond art director Ken Adams wasn't available and was replaced by Peter Lamont.) It is a lesser entry in the series.

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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! 

Watch the title sequence for the film here

Cost: 28 mil. $
Box office: 195.3 mil. $
= Huge hit (returned 6.97 times the cost)
[For Your Eyes Only premiered 24 June (London, UK) and runs 127 minutes. The creators attempted to get Bond back to basics and a more reality-based story after the wild fantasy of preceding film Moonraker (1979). Shooting took place in Greece, Italy, the UK, including London, and in the Bahamas from September 1980 - February 1981. A 23 year-old stunt man was killed during filming of the bobsleigh chase. The film opened #3 to a 6.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 54.8 mil. $ (28.1 % of the total gross). It set a new  opening day record in the UK and became the second-highest grossing Bond picture overall, following Moonraker's 210.3 mil. $. Bill Conti and Mick Leeson's title song was nominated for the Best Song Oscar, lost to Arthur's Theme from Arthur. It was nominated for the equivalent Golden Globe. Glen returned with the next Bond film, Octopussy (1983), also Moore's next film. For Your Eyes Only is fresh at 72 % with a 6.5/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of For Your Eyes Only?

The Cannonball Run (1981) - Needham's major buck race bonanza

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Excitement and star parade on the high-spirited poster for Hal Needham's The Cannonball Run

QUICK REVIEW:

A row of charismatic groups in different cars each wants to win the outlawed Cannonball Run that races across the States.

This silly, nearly plotless crazy comedy/car movie was able to gather a surprising cast, which causes some laughs and entertainment value and in the process salvages the boundlessly pointless film from sinking as dead weight.
Roger Moore (A View to a Kill (1985)), worn out Dean Martin (Rio Bravo (1959)) and Sammy Davis Jr. (Ocean's 11 (1960)), Burt Reynolds (Boogie Nights (1997)) and Dom Deluise (Blazing Saddles (1974)) along with Farrah Fawcett (Logan's Run (1976)) and Jackie Chan (The Legend of Drunken Master (1994)) help to make Cannonball Run, - despite its obvious idiocy, - an enjoyable lowbrow comedy.
It is directed by stunt man legend/director Hal Needham (Cannonball Run II (1984)), produced by the Hong Kong-based Golden Harvest company, and it's based on an actual outlawed race, which was held twice in the 70s.

Related review:

Hal Needham: The Villain/Cactus Jack (1979) or, The Wackadoodle West!

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 16-18 mil. $
Box office: 89.8 mil. $ (USA and Germany only)
= Huge hit
[Despite bad reviews, audiences loved this film: It made 72.1 mil. $ in the US and 17.6 mil. $ in Germany alone. It was the 6th biggest box office hit in America that year.]

What do you think of The Cannonball Run?

A View to a Kill (1985) or, Once a Gentleman, Always a Gentleman!

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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!

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Bond franchise: Spectre (2015) - Mendes' second Bond delivers 
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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 
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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 

Watch a teaser for the film here

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?