This review is part of Project Bond, wherein over the course of 2014 we watch all of the James Bond movies in production order.
Summary: in which microchips are a thing, and so are horse-breeding and earthquakes; Christopher Walken and Grace Jones are A Thing; and Roger Moore is really quite old. But that’s ok, because this is his last Bond!!
Alex: last Moore last Moore last Moore…
This is the first (only?) Bond to start with a legal disclaimer. Weird! But it turns out that when they named the villain’s company Zorin – which, among other things, makes microchips – they creators didn’t realise that there was already a company in existence called Zoran which, among other things, makes microchips. How on EARTH does something like that get past the people in charge? Or the researchers?
Anyway, the microchip appears set to be at the heart of the story when that’s what Bond retrieves in the Siberian snow in the prologue (which is a relatively good chase scene, until it turns out that his iceberg hidey-hole is actually a submarine complete with blonde and cocktails). This particular chip has somehow been manufactured to be resistant to the EMP of a nuclear bomb – clearly a useful advantage if you’re worried about nasty commie retaliatory or preemptive strikes. But then it’s discovered that the commies have this tech too! So we need to go investigate the producer of the chips.
Which leads to the racetrack, and Moneypenny wearing an appalling dress. Zorin’s horse comes first out of nowhere, which leads to Bond visiting the stud farm (oh gahd the possible jokes, most of which are avoided). It turns out the horse what won had a microchip in its leg which released a hormone when activated.
… all of this stuff about the usefulness of microchips is actually build-up for the fact that Zorin is put out about Silicon Valley producing way more than he does, so he’s got a Cunning Plan: destroy Silicon Valley. Buy the factories out? Use poisonous gas? Direct a space-controlled laser on to them? Goodness no! He’s going to instigate an earthquake in both faults that run alongside the Valley, which will destroy it and leave it flooded. Of course! And then the rest of the film is about how Bond finds that out and how he Foils the Dastardly Plan.
Is it obvious that I am so over Moore?
Moore: is old. Seriously. Um, what else… the scene where he drives a Citroen taxi, badly, through Paris is about the most forgettable Bond chase sequence ever, even though he’s chasing Grace Jones with a parachute. And he’s shown, yet again, to be unbearably Good At Everything when he’s able to ride the unrideable horse, over the unrideable steeplechase course. He has a moment of not sleeping with the cute young blonde woman – which was refreshing – but it doesn’t last. 
The villain: Christopher Walken chews scenery. Once again we have an ‘abnormal’ villain: this time it’s revealed that he is (almost certainly) the product of a Nazi experiment, where pregnant women were injected with steroids. 
And the doctor in charge is the same doctor responsible for dosing his horses, which just… ew. Weird. Zorin is also a KGB agent, at least in theory – he has a chat with General Gogol, played by the same actor as always, about having decided to ditch them and go his own way now, thanks. In case we were in any doubt about his villainy, Zorin’s headquarters a lot of the time are on an airship. Most intriguingly about Walken’s character is his relationship with Grace Jones: Mayday.
Mayday: It’s unclear early on whether they’re an item or she is just his bodyguard; they kiss after sparring, but then he allows he to go sleep with Bond (when he’s put himself in her bed, to avoid being found out as wandering the chateau). At the end, though, Mayday helps Bond because Zorin has left her for dead in a flooded mine – she shrieks: “I thought that creep loved me!” and then she sacrifices herself for Bond, after making him promise to “get Zorin for me.” Grace Jones is the best bit about this film. She is tough and competent, she has outrageous costumes (including that most 80s of outfits, a g-string leotard – and a look on her face that says “go on, I dare you, make a comment about my black butt”).
Women: well, there’s Mayday. … And a random Soviet agent, working for Gogol, with whom Bond has already had a relationship and with whom he ends up in a hot tub… and there’s Stacey, the geologist (who seems to be a precursor for Denise Richards as nuclear physicist, but maybe I’m just scarred by that. Stacey is not nearly as bad as Christmas). Bond first tries to chat her up at Zorin’s stud but it doesn’t work (again with the possible innuendo that doesn’t get exploited! It seems like the writers were actually calming the heck down!). He meets here again in America, where it turns out she hates Zorin because he took over her oil company (inherited from her father, but totally still her thing) in a highly dubious manner. He rescues her, and ends up sleeping in a chair – thank goodness. Then there’s discussion of geology and nearly getting burned alive, a truly appalling chase scene with Bond then Stacey driving a firetruck, and the Golden Gate Bridge scene where she’s hanging from a girder and he’s fighting Zorin, after she got kidnapped on an airship. Only THEN do they get it on.
Race: the American CIA agent who connects with Bond is Chinese-American. Sadly, we’re back to PoC-sidekick-dying territory. And while I quite liked him, I was sad it wasn’t Felix Leiter. Plus of course the Walken/Jones couple – there’s no mention of race in any discussion of Mayday, as far as I noticed. Bond films never seem to have a problem with mixed race couples, which is admirable.
Finally, I have to share this photo:
That, my friends, is Dolph Lundgren, on the set of his first movie: A View to a Kill.
James: Jumping off the Eiffel Tower. Saggy old Bond. I struggled to get excited about the last of the awful Moore Bonds… bring on the new era. 1 Martini.
