I Watch Films: For Your Eyes Only
Roger Moore is back as James Bond. This is one of the less high concept Bond films, especially for the Moore period. A British spy ship with a secret communications device on board sinks in the Adriatic. The British task an underwater archaeologist to quietly find it for them but he is killed, so they send Bond after the killer. As might be expected Bond runs into the archaeologist’s (half-)Greek daughter who’s on a mission of revenge.
Anyway it’s a simple tale of two rival Greek smugglers who fought the Nazis in their youth trying to get British Intelligence to solve their problems for them, with an East German biathlete assassin, skiing, ski-jumping, bob-sleds, a horny ice skater too young for Bond, a Citroen 2CV, a whole bunch of technical underwater stuff, a long climbing sequence and heroin.
Did I enjoy this? Pretty much. The more awkward scenes – Bibi trying to seduce Bond, him kicking a car with a villain in it off the cliff etc. – feel no worse than some of the other outdated bits. The action scenes are generally good, with an occasional close-up on a projection when Bond is skiing that fails.
There’s a couple of jokes that still stand up – “It’s a nose, not a banana Q,” and Thatcher talking to the parrot. And I did enjoy the odd bit of really modern technology that’s now old hat, or a dead end.
Watch This: For Bond as 80s Cold War Thriller
Don’t Watch This: If Bond does nothing for you, or alternatively, you want a big high-concept ridiculous villain.
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