1.16.22 - A VIEW TO KILL (James Bond #14)

And so we come to the end of the Roger Moore era/week with 

A VIEW TO KILL, in which Bond must stop a psychopathic industrialist who plans to flood Silicon Valley in order to establish a monopoly on computer microchips.

Here we see Roger Moore in his final outing as James Bond at the ripe old age of 57(!) Much has been said about how Bond's age really weakens this movie, and I can't totally disagree, but nor is it as bad as I feared it would be. Moore is old, yes, but he still carries himself pretty well and it's not like he's fallen completely off the edge of the age cliff. His action scenes are a little slow and sparse, but there's nothing that really jolts me the wrong way. Can't be denied though, that when a 45-year-old Christopher Walken looks like a fresh faced youth next to Bond - it's well past time for Moore to hang up the holster. 

Walken turns in a good performance as a psychopathic villain here, with a pretty decent plan to flood and destroy Silicon Valley so he can hold a monopoly on producing computer microchips. Walken relies a little too much on his psychopathic villain chuckle in the latter half of the movie, but he still has shades of Goldfinger here. 

The rest of the movie works pretty well. Bond movies, this far into the canon - and knowing they will be forumlaic - are at their strongest when they can find new settings/elements to inject in. Here we have Bond posing as a horse dealer at Walken's estate, culminating in a steeplechase/horseback chase which all feels pretty exciting since we haven't seen anything like it, and it's overall well executed. Then in Act 3 we get the whole mine sequence which is also fresh. 

They do send Roger Moore off energetically with 4 different bonks with 4 different women (this might be the record) - so we end this week now with an updated total of 42 bonks with 33 women. 

Overall I liked this movie pretty well, it's certainly in the top half of the Roger Moore era. We've had a good run with him, but I won't be upset to see him go and get a fresh Bond face tomorrow!