Oh, yes, the snow plow! Conveniently, I forgot about that. Although I would immediately defend that scene as something which really could happen in that location. Well, if you’re chased by goons who cannot ski as well as Bond. But it’s different from hanging from a conveyor belt.
DAF has that thing inside the pipeline which could have maimed Bond, too. So EON really likes this sort of thing! Look out, Amazon, executives.
LOL at my desk!
With DAF, I was thinking less grinding as in maiming, and more grinding as in showgirls. (I just saw GYPSY on Broadway last Sunday, so that may have influenced me.)
The Brits have tax dollars? 
I’d say the deaths of Carver and Graves count as grinding, too.
Yeah, this post continues my movement towards TLD being the better of the two Dalton films. I daresay TLD has a more serious tone than its successor, despite the reputation of LTK being brutal. LTK goes for darker elements but it’s still diluted by content like Q’s comical arrival at the hotel. TLD on the other hand I think more successfully integrates the traditional Bond film experience with Fleming, done in a way that feels slicker and less cheap.
Kara is one of the best Bond women in the series, with her relationship with Bond being right up there with Tracy for me. It certainly feels the most romantic and meaningful, with If There Was A Man really paying off big time during the end credits. Their dynamic elevates the film a lot.
I’m not suddenly a LTK basher (it’s my birth year Bond movie, and Sanchez is exceptional), but if LTK continued the template set out by TLD I’m thinking the response would’ve been better, and helped his case for a third film despite any delays getting in the way.
Fully agreed. TLD really offered so many things, old and new, in one big spy adventure. It reignited my fandom and gave me hopes for a long Dalton era.
Dalton is a fine actor who lent emotional believability to the role. While watching his two films I believe he’s a burnt out veteran agent who knows how to do his job and doesn’t need anyone telling him. It makes his relationships rewarding, too. He starts out impatient with Kara, her cello and Saunders. But those connections evolve, most notably with Saunders and Bond’s poignant “thanks” before Necros’ successful assasination.
Much the same with the argumentative beginning Bond has with Pam. There wasn’t anything one note about the Bond of 1987-1989’s darker side. He wasn’t just a grumpy brick wall - he cared a lot for his allies once a rapport was developed. I would’ve loved at least three from him, but it wasn’t to be. I don’t think he did a bad film despite what I’ve said about LTK.
Goes to the heart of why I play it as it’s SO typically a Bond movie, it is the most formulaic of the 80s Bonds which is saying something.
Why more than for example Octopussy or AVTAK?
Because both in their ways are so of the 80s, stylistically they don’t look as formulaic as the one dressed to look timeless.
To say this is one thing, but can you explain it a bit more, because I dont see a real difference between those too and TLD or FYEO if I’m honest. I think Octopussy is even more a big classic Bond than the others and AVTAK follows the formula in such a way you could say that it all became too predictable and even somewhat boring.
With TLD the only real difference is that you got the new quy in the lead, who’s younger and fresh and you only got one Bondgirl, but other than that? You still have all the mandatory numbers that are ticked off, a Q scene, a Moneypenny scene, a car chase with an Aston full of gadgets, a dangerous henchman etc.
By the way…
A VIEW TO A KILL
Before:
I remember, being 16, still a big Bond fan after the double whammy of OP and NSNA, looking forward to the next adventure, coming as planned, reliably after two years. And strangely, I went to see it with my parents and my older sister (not a Bond fan at all), in the middle of the week, with a pizza dinner afterwards - an absolutely uncommon experience for our family. I also remember that I thought, well, this film was not as good as the previous ones. I was aware that it would be Moore´s last one, and I had read reviews which made fun of his age - and really the age of the Bond series. Too old, the consensus seemed to be. And my family did not really enjoy the film either. Which made me claim I did all the more. When I didn’t really.
In the following years AVTAK seemed to remain just the end of an era, but with TLD and the younger Dalton it really was a Bond of the past. Of course, back then, I had no chance of revisiting it whenever I wanted, so the memories of that time in the cinema weighed heavy over my opinions. Strange times, right, when you could only watch a Bond film or any film in theaters, and when the run was over you had to wait until it was in a revival show or maybe landed on video or tv. Which, with the Bond films, did not happen until the late 80´s I guess, and then only with the older films.
So I don’t know when I actually rewatched AVTAK for the first time. I think it was many years later when I got the DVD. And I don’t remember how I liked it on second viewing. I guess as little as before because I just don’t remember.
When the blu ray-set was released I rewatched it probably two more times (during the last decades), always more dutifully. But I seem to remember (it really gets worse with age) that I did like it more and more. But still it was always at the bottom of the Moore films, sometimes even at the bottom of my rankings of them all.
The impression was: been there, done that. Moore really is too old now. Nothing is that spectacular. And then Stacey… oh, now, just don’t even mention her.
So I never thought I would want to rewatch it unless I had rewatched the others too often.
You see where this is going? Maybe not!
After:
I never would have thought how much I could enjoy AVTAK. Especially not after rewatching LTK. Imagine my surprise that I loved every second of AVTAK, as if I finally understood what it is and needed to be, after all those years of opinion-baggage and unfair prejudices.
Yes, Moore is old, and it shows (just like his sometimes overtanned skin - hello, CR backseat scene with Bond and Vesper! - and his sometimes incredibly blue eyes). But if one starts to doubt a (during filming) 57 year old actor could perform all those physical feats, one has to be honest that any 30 year old actor would also have been doubled by stuntmen. The suspension of disbelief afforded for a young actor has to be allowed for an older actor as well. So I never thought this time that MooreBond was too old for jumping towards the closing drawbridge, for instance. It was just Bond achieving that.
And is Moore still a good Bond here? He is a great Bond here. I enjoyed it enormously when he mischievously smiled at any provocation delivered by Zorin and his goons. Just as I really felt his disdain later on when Zorin praises his genius for improvised killings. And the visible age difference between Moore´s Bond and the villains of AVTAK is not something that weighs the film down - it is something that make the film more interesting. AVTAK is the “Old Bond”-variation which NSNA only sometimes dared to be. It is about an ageing knight in still shining armor having to acknowledge that the younger villains are more brutal and less inhibited than those he used to fight.
Walken and Grace Jones were perfect casting choices for that idea, and the contrast between them and Moore (and MacNee and, yes, Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn) keeps the film absolutely thrilling.
And with those pros doing what they do best, John Glen´s directing talents can concentrate on keeping the action well-shot and the rhythm of the film flowing - despite all the set pieces not being too outlandish but rather down-to-earth. In fact, AVTAK is the least outlandish of all the later Moore films, with no Q gadgets taking front and center functions (the Elton John-tribute sunglasses inhibiting sun reflection on windows is the most Qish thing here). Bond really has to rely on his wits to escape and outmaneuver Zorin - and there are many scenes in which Bond actually investigates and, you know, spies.
AVTAK also does the travelogue-element of the early films very well which gives the film a layered feeling of time and space, and again it is lifted by a truly beautiful and powerful John Barry score (here’s hoping LLL will do the anniversary this year!).
Is there a lot of back projection in this film? Yes. But even the wonderful finale on top of the Golden Gate Bridge does not suffer from that, for my taste. Again, I was completely entertained and in that moment, the way it is filmed and edited, and the way Walken laughs before he loses his grip and falls to his death is such a magnificent moment: the villain who thought this could never happen to him. I love that moment.
As for Tanya Roberts. Stacey (um, interesting how that name sounds a lot like Mrs. Bond´s first name, doesn’t it?) might look like the typical mid-80´s airhead, with the blowdried blond mane and the heavy eye shadow. But that’s what the fashion was in those days, kids. Imagine how in twenty years people will snicker at the women in the Craig films - or at Craig’s suits.
Does Roberts deliver her often very exposition-laden dialogue badly? No. In fact, try that at home and you will discover how well she manages to do it. Her dismissive tone towards Bond during their first encounters is absolutely on point, and later on she keeps on doing what one can do with that role. All those criticisms about her screaming “JAMES! HELP ME!” in the elevator shaft are absolutely unfair. There are flames all around her, she can barely breathe, and Bond has to leave her at first, barely making it himself out of there. Wouldn’t all of us be scared in that moment, crying out for Bond to help us? I surely would.
I believe the Stacey-hate is similar to the Christmas Jones-hate. Two actresses who are made up like playdolls having to deliver the damsel-in-distress mode… and getting laughed at for it. Yes, they both aren’t Meryl Streep. But that’s not the point.
In conclusion, I absolutely loved AVTAK. Moore bows out with a really entertaining, down the earth film, which is so much better than its reputation. And I guess that is mostly due to people rather reviewing the criticisms of it instead of actually having watched it as much as other Bonds.
At least I did make that mistake. Now I count AVTAK as one of my favourite Bonds.
My major objection of AVTAK and in fact the only objection is the pace of the film, which is much too slow, especially the French part with the horses, which lasts far too long. You get a half-baked fight under the stables, in which the two old guys Moore and Magnee of course win, it’s all so average, they should have cut that out then you would have had a lot more momentum.
It is also a mistake to show Magnee’s character, Sir Godfrey, being murdered at the car wash. It would have been much more exciting if we as viewers had discovered this together with Bond when he wants to cut in Sir Godfrey’s car.
Furthermore, I spent the entire film waiting for the confrontation between Bond and MayDay, which never actually happens. I understand that Moore was perhaps too old to take on her, but they could have done something more with it, especially using his ingenuity and dexterity, think of his confrontations with Jaws as an example.
True. But then it would have been a very abrupt end for Tibbett.
The night with her already exhausted Bond too much. And would one really have wanted to see Moore beating a black woman?
If you put it like that than ofcourse the answere is “No!”, but that is not how I watched these movies when I was a teenager in 1985. I thought Jones was a realy great henchwoman and I was thinking while I watched the movie for the first time: “Wow! Like good old times, finally again someone like Oddjob or Jaws to fight against Bond!”
Well, Bond had no real chance against OddJobb or Jaws either, so MayDay would have had to be tricked, too.
Like I said: “especially using his ingenuity and dexterity, think of his confrontations with Jaws as an example”.
I think AVTAK probably plays better now, as just one of many possible selections in the “jukebox” of 25 films at our disposal, than it did in 1985, when it was the 7th go-round of a song we’d been listening to for 12 years already. I don’t imagine there are many fans who love Roger more than I do, but even I was getting tired of his schtick at this point.
Or no, actually, I should amend that: I didn’t think I was getting tired of it until AVTAK. It’s not like it got less and less fun with each film, and in fact I had really enjoyed OP just two years earlier. There was just something about AVTAK that made me think, “Yes, yes, I’ve seen all this before, and better. Can we just please move on?”
I don’t know if it’s possible to really articulate what was behind that feeling, but it’s still there for me whenever I watch this one. Something about it just feels so “by the numbers,” like everyone decided, “it’s been 2 years, time for another one” and had no more motivation than that.
Having said all that, there are moments in this where Roger looks terrific, even though in others he looks…not even so much old as just unwell. Also I liked the bit with the crazy steeplechase and the bit where Bond uses his wits to escape drowning by taking air from the Rolls’ tires. And of course Walken is awesome. All in all, it just feels unnecessary; a film too far for Roger after what would have been a great exit in OP, and a needless detour before starting a new era with a new lead.
Interesting that you made it a family event the first time around. I saw it with my brother in '85 and he came out saying Bond in AVTAK was like Inspector Clouseau in that things just happened to him instead of him making things happen. I don’t think I understood that remark at the time and it’s useless asking him now as he hasn’t seen it again in 40 years and probably wouldn’t on a dare. I didn’t feel much like defending the film, so I let it slide.
Funnily, that’s what many producers often claim: the protagonist always has to make things happen, to act and not to react.
Which would make every protagonist a bland superhero. Of course, if a protagonist like Bond would only stumble around, reacting, it would be boring, too. The right mix is essential if you want to keep a character as a human being.
In AVTAK Bond is making lots of things happen, inserting himself into the proceedings (what a pun!) a lot but consequently getting heavy pushback to react to.
Yeah, now I wish I’d asked for elaboration.
Maybe he was thinking of the firetruck sequence, where Bond comes off as a Harold Lloyd-type figure, pulled to and fro by physics while Stacey does all the driving. Maybe he was thinking of MayDay ending up on top in bed and, as jamesb007nd says, never being defeated by Bond in any real sense. Even the long ride on the dirigible, while a superhuman feat beyond any real man, still amounts to “just hanging on” for miles and miles.
It’s hard to know how much Roger’s physical appearance played into perceptions. Possibly an older man has to work twice as hard to seem on top of things. I don’t think my brother had the same complaint about GF, wherein Sean’s Bond spends a good chunk of the film as a prisoner, but looks young and virile even in his helplessness.
Perhaps the problem was really how big the gap between fantasy and reality had become. I vividly remember this poster:
Moore is looking lean like a whip in this depiction; together with Grace Jones they look like two alley cats ready to pounce. Just what you’d want from a Bond film and when you settle in your seat at the theatre you expect some smashing great experience.
Sadly, the product rarely takes off to make good on this promise. I privately used to refer to A VIEW TO A KILL as the ‘Gardner Bond film’; there’s arctic snowmobile action (Icebreaker), a horse race and a cheating owner (Licence Renewed), an escape from a burning elevator shaft (For Special Services) and a blimp airship in a quarry (Role of Honour). And while this was at least wrapped into a semi-logical plot (the only odd element is why Zorin would bother with Stacy when he evidently can achieve his aim without her selling) it plays much like those Gardner continuations in that the main attraction seems to be missing.
Today, AVTAK holds that thankless rank of ‘one too many’ for Moore, perhaps unfairly. It’s true, when I left the theatre in that August ‘85 I felt this could have been a much more engaging affair with Lewis Collins or any of the half dozen other actors the tabloids peddled for the role. But would that have made the difference? I’m not so sure a younger actor would have fared better in a film that was largely a routine effort.
