Today’s quick review: A View to a Kill. Evidence of a leak in the development of a cutting-edge microchip leads James Bond (Roger Moore) to France, where Max Zorin (Christopher Walken), the head of the company producing the chip, has his estate. There Bond matches wits with the industrialist and his right-hand woman, May Day (Grace Jones), while uncovering the pieces of Zorin’s master plan: to corner the world’s microchip market by force.
A View to a Kill is a spy adventure and the fourteenth mainline film in the James Bond franchise, as well as Roger Moore’s seventh and final excursion as Bond. The plot is a return to the series’ roots, pitting Bond against a larger-than-life villain with a devastating plan. The combination of its villain, plot progression, and weightier tone relative to the other Moore movies makes A View to a Kill a solid if unexceptional entry into the series.
A View to a Kill’s strengths lie with its villains. Max Zorin is the quintessential Bond villain, a sadistic businessman with shady connections and a taste for the finer things in life. Though not quite as memorable as Bond’s best villains, he fits in comfortably with the pack and does a good job of driving the film’s plot. For her part, May Day fills a similar role, an intimidating, if not superlative, henchman with an important part to play.
Everything else in the film follows the usual pattern. The locales this time around include Siberia, a French country estate, and San Francisco. The investigation has some interesting twists and turns, the action is suitably explosive, and the higher stakes and sense of peril set it apart from Moore’s lighter outings as Bond. But ultimately A View to a Kill is missing the vision and polish that make the best Bond films so memorable.
Watch A View to a Kill when you’re in the mood for a James Bond adventure and aren’t feeling too particular about the details. A View to a Kill is a solid execution of the Bond fomula that avoids some of the unevenness of films like Moonraker and Octopussy. However, it falls short of films like Dr. No and Goldfinger, which handle similar stories with more style, leaving it a fine pick for action fans but a flawed one for purists.
6.4 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.5 to 7.0 for a well-crafted adventure that’s a step down from Bond’s best.