A View to a Kill (1985) | A Bold Zinger

The first time I saw A View to a Kill, I saw similarities with previous Bond movies but didn’t think much of it. The second time around, however, it occurred to me how much it was just like Goldfinger. If you read my Moonraker review, you might be expecting me to rail against A View to a Kill for recycling some previous work. However, I think that even though it is essentially a remake of Goldfinger, A View to a Kill manages to do something that Moonraker couldn’t do and simply manages to stand out from its predecessors as its own movie. Spoilers ahead…

Pros

Good title sequence and theme
Christopher Walken being a weirdo and hamming it up
Decent characterization of Zorin with his cruel and psychotic actions being set up by his rough relationship with the KGB
A pretty film in pretty locations like Paris and San Francisco (before it became the modern dystopian nightmare of today)
Yet another instance in which a villain changes loyalties for better reasons than Pussy Galore

Cons

Tanya Roberts is not great in this and is very present in the latter portion of the film
It can feel a little too much like a remake of Goldfinger
Moore’s age is catching up with him and the obviousness of stunt doubles has peaked

Plot & Thoughts

James Bond (Roger Moore) manages to recover a microchip from the body of a dead double-o agent in the Soviet Union. He and MI6 have every reason to believe the microchip belongs to the KGB, but it bears similarities to a microchip company owned by a man named Max Zorin (Christopher Walken). Interested in finding out more about the microchip mogul, Bond attends a horse race in which a horse owned by Zorin is entered. Zorin’s horses have a high probability of winning these races and Bond wants to know why. He and a horse racing expert, Sir Godfrey Tibbet (Patrick Macnee), break into the track after dark to investigate. They find some shady operations but nothing to indict Zorin.

The two of them set off for Zorin’s estate where he occasionally hosts a horse auction. For once, Bond uses an alias with Tibbet as his servant, however, Zorin is no fool and quickly figures out who Bond is. Zorin’s right-hand woman, Mayday (Grace Jones) manages to kill Tibbet but Bond escapes to fight another day. His determination to find out what Zorin is up to eventually brings him to the San Francisco Bay Area and he meets a state geologist, Stacy Sutton (Tanya Roberts) who has a few bones to pick with Zorin herself. Soon enough, all of Zorin’s plans are revealed that he wants to destroy a reservoir on the outskirts of Silicon Valley with the hope that the flood will wipe out all of his microchip competition.

I had a much lengthier synopsis of the plot written out before my computer crashed and I lost my progress, so I skipped a few things and kept it short this time. There’s not much that happens in the opening portion of the film. There’s a decent chase sequence through Paris involving Bond and Mayday, but in terms of the actual plot progressing, it’s a bit slow. Things really start to pick up more once Bond makes his way to Silicon Valley because the mystery of who Zorin is and what his plans are becomes more interesting.

The main reason to see A View to a Kill is Zorin. Even though this is basically a carbon copy of Goldfinger in terms of plot and characters, Zorin manages to stand out as a devilishly evil antagonist. The backstory of him potentially being the result of a genetic experiment carried out by Nazis is intriguing. The fact that he is a KGB agent who has gone rogue makes him a more interesting enemy for Bond to deal with. His plan, while essentially the same as Goldfinger’s, has much more collateral damage, which elevates his malice. There have been plenty of Bond villains with evil plans that involve far more innocent deaths than Zorin’s, however, they usually had a much bigger goal in mind. Zorin just wants his microchips to be worth more and he’s willing to wipe out a geographical region and anyone in it to do so, including his own men. The scene that has him mowing down his own employees with a machine gun may have upset Roger Moore, but I think it just helps establish how psychotic Zorin is. Of course, Christopher Walken’s particular style in his performance adds to the character in ways only Walken can accomplish.

This was Roger Moore’s least favorite James Bond movie to make. Part of it was that he didn’t enjoy the dark tone that Zorin’s actions brought to the movie. He was also getting old by this point and was unable to perform a lot of the more physical moments of the movie without heavily relying on a double, and it’s pretty obvious a lot of the time. He also didn’t have a great relationship with Grace Jones on set, even though she quite fondly remembers working with him—it seems like that was mostly because Jones was using method acting to stay in character and was not courteous to Moore. I think that had The Living Daylights been the movie to be released in 1985 instead of this, he might have stuck around longer for the role, but A View to a Kill ended up being his last entry in the franchise. A View to a Kill is not a bad entry, either; it’s just on the lower end of Roger Moore’s classic Bond movies.

The main fault against it is the same benefit it has: it’s a remake of Goldfinger. I was overly harsh with Moonraker for copying a movie that came before it, but at least this one is copying a movie from twenty years prior while still trying to do some new things. Zorin is, thankfully, not just a copy of Goldfinger, even though his evil plot is essentially the same. Mayday is much like Oddjob, but she is allowed to talk a lot more and has a more influential role in how Bond wins the day in the end. If you compare this film to Goldfinger, however, it doesn’t stand a chance against it in terms of fun and memorability. There are just enough differences and charismatic performances from its actors to justify its existence and help it stand out as its own thing.

TL;DR

When it comes to ranking A View to a Kill against its predecessors, it doesn’t really compete with the best of Moore or Connery. However, even as something of a remake of Goldfinger, it still manages to be a fun experience that stands on its own. The real stars of the show are the villains who manage to keep the film moving right up to its big finale on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Hair of the Dog Drinking Game Rule

Branding is important if you’re trying to make it big—I’m not, so DagonDogs is likely to wallow in obscurity. Zorin knows how to build a brand and flaunt it. From microchips to suits to blimps, Zorin wants you to know his name. He probably has his brand on every bullet he fires into his own employees just to make sure they know who fired them (literally). Bad jokes aside, you can count on the Zorin brand appearing at some point in the movie, so why not make that a rule?