reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (06/02/85)
As I think about the new James Bond movie, "A View to a
Kill", I wax metaphorical. I think of a once elegant party which
has gone on too long. All the French champagne has already been
drunk, and the remaining domestic stuff has gone flat. The pates
are beginning to spoil, the brie has turned into a smelly, runny
liquid, the souffles have fallen, the whipped cream has curdled,
and they're out of strawberries, anyway. The flowers are wilt-
ing. Several members of the orchestra are drowsing and the rest
are wearily playing the least taxing tunes their sleep addled
memories can recall. All of the urbane English lords, dazzling
French intellectuals, witty New York writers, and fascinating Far
Easterner artists have departed, leaving a crowd composed largely
of insurance salesmen from Topeka. The host is getting visibly
tired, and obviously wishes his remaining guests would leave so
that he can go to bed, though he is far too polite to even hint
at this. Dawn is breaking, but with no feeling of rebirth.
Rather, it promises only the beginning of a particularly dreary
and rainy Wednesday.
Get the picture? "A View to a Kill" is a tired film, devoid
of inspiration and enthusiasm. The old team is still there, but
they are unable to muster up any real excitement. Roger Moore,
always a second choice for the role of James Bond, shows no great
interest either in dispatching the villains or bedding the women.
His quips are feeble and delivered in a manner which suggests
little confidence in them. John Barry's score is stolid and
unhelpful, failing even to properly use the James Bond theme
song. Duran Duran's title song is forgotten, note for note, as
it is played. John Glen's direction is slack and disinterested.
The gadgets and effects are largely unextraordinary and unorigi-
nal, and poorly employed, too. Maurice Binder's opening credit
sequence, often a highlight of Bond films, is uninspired and even
amateurish. It would be laughed off of MTV, and certainly isn't
up to his past work.
Very little of "A View to a Kill" is worth mention. Grace
Jones, as the secondary villain, Mayday, is energetic and
enthusiastic. She has a good time, even if no one else does. I
think she's demonstrated an interesting enough personality in
this and the second Conan movie to deserve a film of her own.
I've heard someone suggest that she take over as James Bond, but
that may be going a bit far. Some of the stunts and action se-
quences aren't bad. The opening skiing sequence is OK, a jump
off the Eiffel tower is interesting if only because it obviously
really is the Eiffel tower, and it's hard to resist a fire engine
jumping the gap of an opening bridge. Other action sequences are
less exciting, and the ending suffers from being undercut by last
summer's "Indiana Jones". I'm fairly sure that it wasn't a copy,
as the Bond film was probably far along in production by the time
"Indiana Jones" came out, but Spielberg's flooded mine was a lot
more fun than this one.
Tanya Roberts is the main love interest, and she's just ter-
rible. She looks great, but she must live in dread of being im-
prisoned in a paper bag and being forced to act her way out. By
the end of the film, the audience I saw "A View to a Kill" with
was laughing in derision every time it looked like Roberts was
going to open her mouth. She had a large share of stupid lines,
but she could make Noel Coward sound inane. An early, permanent
retirement is called for in the case of Ms. Roberts.
Christopher Walken sounded like an interesting choice for
Max Zorin, the principle villain, but he really doesn't work out
too well. He's chosen to underplay Zorin's insanity, and I get
the feeling that the editor kept cutting away from Walken's reac-
tions a second too soon to get the effect Walken was going for.
Walken may have given a good performance before the camera, but,
if so, it's on the cutting room floor.
Which brings us to the subject of the editing. It's flac-
cid. The cutting during the action sequences is especially poor-
ly done. There is no crispness to the cuts. Potentially good
fight scenes are uninvolving because the editor doesn't give us a
sense of speed and desperation. Rather, it looks like a bunch of
stuntmen going through the motions. John Glen, the director, did
an excellent job on "For Your Eyes Only" and an adequate job on
"Octopussy", but here is unable to convince most of his cast that
this is anything other than a routine assignment, so he gets rou-
tine performances. Glen hasn't provided the editor with espe-
cially good material, but even so, more could have been made of
it.
"A View to a Kill" isn't the worst of the Bond movies, but
it's near the bottom. I can only hope that the next Bond film
cleans the Augean stables and replaces the whole crew, from Roger
Moore to John Glen to John Barry to Maurice Binder. Cubby Bro-
colli, long time producer of Bond films, needs to find a cinemat-
ic equivalent of Peter Sellars, the energetic and iconoclastic
director of the Kennedy Center's controversial new theatrical
program. Without a fresh approach, the Bond films are likely to
face a rapid decline in ticket sales and audience interest.
--
Peter Reiher
reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
soon to be reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher