Roger Moore as James Bond

Live and Let Die

The Man with the Golden Gun

The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker

For Your Eyes Only (October 7/08)

Though infused with some of the best chase sequences within the Bond series, For Your Eyes Only suffers from a disastrously plodding midsection that ultimately casts a pall over the remainder of the proceedings (ie the film is never quite able to recover from the ineffectiveness of its second act). This is despite a welcome attempt to echo the less flashy sensibilities of the Sean Connery era, as the movie consistently eschews over-the-top gadgets and comic-book characters in favor of a far more down-to-earth (relatively speaking, of course) sort of vibe. The storyline follows Roger Moore's James Bond as he's sent to recover a lost British encryption device, with his efforts assisted by a beautiful yet vengeful woman (Carole Bouquet's Melina) and a helpful smuggler named Milos Columbo (Topol). For Your Eyes Only kicks off with a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek sequence in which the secret agent finally dispatches longtime foe Blofeld, though the character is never named due to the notorious legal problems stemming from Kevin McClory's ownership of Thunderball. Scripters Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson subsequently offer up an effective set-up that eventually leads to a pair of phenomenal chase sequences, with a pursuit through the streets of a small Grecian village eventually giving way to a spectacular set-piece wherein Bond attempts to out-ski a rifle-toting stalker. There does, however, reach a point at which the film becomes bogged down with exposition and needless chatter, with the subsequent inclusion of a thoroughly dull deep-sea recovery mission only exacerbating the sudden (and pronounced) turn for the worse. The third-act showdown atop central villain Kristatos' (Julian Glover) mountain lair feels protracted and anti-climactic, yet - to be fair - the movie's positives generally outweigh its negatives (with Moore's superb performance consistently holding one's interest through the increasingly prevalent lulls in the narrative).

out of

Octopussy

A View to a Kill