Bond 14: A View to a Kill (1985)

Elevator Pitch: Bond recovers a computer chip from the body of 003 in Siberia, and back in the headquarters of MI6 they find that it matches exactly a chip produced by the Zorin Corporation. Bond is sent to France where he becomes a guest at Max Zorin’s chateau, and is apparently assassinated, but survives. Meanwhile we, the viewers, find out that Zorin has a plan to destroy Sillicone Valley in America, in order to control the computer chip industry. Bond and Stacey Sutton, a geologist, race against time to save San Francisco from Zorin’s dastardly plan.

Content: Bond skis out of trouble in Siberia, and has a confrontation with May Day on the Eiffel Tower, from which she escapes, although he chases her in a car which eventually falls in two. He goes to Zorin’s horse sale at a luxury chateau, where his Roller is ditched in a lake. He goes to America and visits Zorin’s “oil pumping station”, where he is involved with a Russian spy. He teams up with a geologist, but they are trapped in an administrative building San Francisco which is set light to by Zorin. They escape in a fire engine. There is a confrontation in a mine under the city and a fight on the Golden Gate bridge.

A View: Let’s say to start with that this movie made money, but it was not much liked by the critics, mainly because Roger Moore was too old they thought. Actually he had had “work done” which made him look like a waxwork effigy of himself. He was 57. But what were they thinking?. Practically every scene was restrained, as if they were somehow trying to inject realism. For the first time Bond pretended to be someone else, and in the climax the villain randomly kills his own employees. I am a fan of the franchise so it pains me to make this film a DON’T SEE.

Additional Info: The title song, by Duran Duran, made it to the top of the charts, the only Bond song to do so.