91 replies to this topic

[Professor Pi]

How do you not hear a blimp swoop down behind you?

[S K Y F A L L]

For me the worst part of the film is May Day, she just doesn't work for me, I don't think shes a good actress and I don't find her attractive. 

I also disliked the car stunt when one gets cut in half, just didn't find it funny I guess. 

I like it more so then I did OP and I never get other Bonds relationship with Tibbett. Zorin, his plan, the horses and locations make this one a win for me.

[seawolfnyy]

Change a few things:

 

Dalton instead of Moore,

no California Girls,

replace Tanya Roberts,

better use of Grace Jones

 

and you have a very good entry in the 007 franchise.

[Iceskater101]

^ Haha I agree with the replace Moore with Dalton.

[AMC Hornet]

Change a few things:

 

Dalton instead of Moore,

no California Girls,

replace Tanya Roberts,

better use of Grace Jones

 

and you have a very good entry in the 007 franchise.

I agree, except:

Why all the hate for 'California Girls'?

It was just a sample and it fit the scene, as did 'Lawrence of Arabia' in TSWLM and 'The Magnificent 007' in MR. It's not as if we're expected to believe that the music was playing so that the pursuing Russian soldiers could hear it too.

The first-night audience I saw AVTAK with loved it (of course, I live in a ski town where any snow action in a film is warmly received). You really have to see a film with an audience to appreciate what others see and enjoy. Sitting at home with a boxed set and plowing through the films one after another is bound to give you a different perspective - for instance, you're not taking into account the sort of buildup and and anticipation that we've just experienced with Skyfall, and are already starting with B24; you're not accepting that attitudes towards what's entertaining change from decade to decade - there's no sense imposing 2012 attitudes on a 1985 film.

Good God, am I defending AVTAK?

No - just the Beach Boys sample. That's all right then.

Bitching about how DAF is a disappointing follow-up to OHMSS, for example, is pointless. Desires and expectations changed between 1969 and 1971, and a gritty, angst-ridden revenge tale wasn't what people wanted then (I'm not so sure we want any more now, either). Watching them back-to-back is bound to give you a different impression than if you'd had to wait two years in between.

I loved Octopussy in 1983, was disappointed by AVTAK, and reassured by TLD that 007 was back on track (then came a gritty, angst-ridden revenge tale. Oh well...).

I carry this attitude over into other genres, too. For instance, I'd never seen the Addams Family until the first movie came out in 1991, so I wasn't comparing it to the 1960s TV series. When I caught up with the TV series, I still didn't judge one or the other to be 'wrong'. I recognized that they were different takes on how you make a live production based on a series of creepy one-panel magazine comics.

So the only way to change what's in AVTAK is to make your own 'Never Say McClory Again' version dubbing out the offending music and chopping up the rest of the film to satisfy yourself that your version is better than the one that you've already seen, will never really forget, and is still out there instead of yours. Personally, I don't have the ambition or the technical skills to tackle such a project - and if I did, I would rather tackle Moonraker...

[Professor Pi]

Just finished viewing AVTAK on Bluray with a better appreciation of the film, but also some harsher criticism.  The first half is actually rather solid with good chase scenes and locales.  Lots of intriguing espionage and some forward thinking in the writing (steroids, EMP--a deleted scene even has Stacy arguing environmentalism with the mayor of San Francisco.)  Zorin's method of dispatching Bond while at the steeplechase both mirrors and improves on Kamal Kahn's safari hunt from Octopussy.  But then the second half descends into unoriginal rubbish with Zorin's plot borrowing from Goldfinger, Superman, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 

 

Most of it is silly (the fire truck chase, yet another dumb cop battling wits with Bond) and that is hard to contrast with the more violent elements now popping up such as Zorin's cold blooded murder of Howe.  But the film gets downright psychopathic with Zorin and Scarpine machine gunning hundreds of men.  It's one thing to have that many soldiers die in a volcano, tanker, underwater, on an airbase or in space, but these scenes are more like serial killings than battles between armies. Maybe it's just the perspective with today's shootings, but similar scenes from Tomorrow Never Dies also seem more sick than chilling.  In that way, these movies are more disturbingly violent than LTK or QoS.

 

Roger does look more fit and his mole is gone after a facelift.  But the crow's feet around his eyes betray his age.  Tanya Roberts is gorgeous to look at, but can't act and is given the most horrible role since Mary Goodnight.  Grace Jones is better than I remember, but doesn't work with Moore.  I'm thinking Sam Neil might have been better for this Bond (though I do like Dalton.)  Christopher Walken is too young to play this villain, but who cares.  It's Christopher Walken.

 

One final thought, changing the title just to fit the worst set up line in the film was a mistake.  "From A View to A Kill" still makes sense for this movie, even if never spoken out loud, just like "Quantum of Solace" or "The Spy Who Loved Me" fit their stories without characters uttering the title.

[Odd Jobbies]

My view on AVTAK....

 

A waste of Christopher Walken.

....But the film gets downright psychopathic with Zorin and Scarpine machine gunning hundreds of men.  It's one thing to have that many soldiers die in a volcano, tanker, underwater, on an airbase or in space, but these scenes are more like serial killings than battles between armies.

 

Best scene in the movie.

 

Whenever Walken's onscreen the threat is real, the stakes are high. He is a Nazi experiment after all.

 

The rest of the time it's James Bond Meets Cacoon.

[Grard Bond]

I think  the movie is just too slow. Especialy the scene's in and around the French chateau. A lot of scene's could have been shortened/cut or even let out, think about the fight scene in the cellar with Bond and  Tibbit against the two guards. It so uninspired.

Also it's a mistake that the viewer already knew that Tibbit is killed by Mayday. It would have been much better if you find this out together with Bond.

 

The carchase with the fire engine is realy stuppid, not only the chase itself, but also there is no real reason this happens. We need another actionscene, let's put it in here.... Pffff!

 

Also Roberts is not a great Bondgirl, she is in the league of Ekland's Goodnight. Why not an older more mature actress, like Maud Adams in Octopussy, that would have been more appropriate with the older Moore. Someone like Catherine Deneuve or Faye Dunaway.

 

I think Grace Jones as Mayday is exellent as a female henchman, but... there never is a real confrontation with Bond, so that is disapointed! Ofcourse I understand that Moore was too old to fight with her in a way that it was believable, but never the less, missing an opportunity for a real classic fight.

[Turn]

I think  the movie is just too slow. Especialy the scene's in and around the French chateau. A lot of scene's could have been shortened/cut or even let out, think about the fight scene in the cellar with Bond and  Tibbit against the two guards. It so uninspired.

Also it's a mistake that the viewer already knew that Tibbit is killed by Mayday. It would have been much better if you find this out together with Bond.

 

The carchase with the fire engine is realy stuppid, not only the chase itself, but also there is no real reason this happens. We need another actionscene, let's put it in here.... Pffff!

I agree, the pace is bad, but gets even worse when Bond gets to San Francisco. I've long said from his arrival there up until the truck chase is the longest, most boring stretch in any Bond film with two meager action scenes in between to "liven" things up.

 

They figured with the hills of San Francisco a chase would be a natural. But Bulitt set the bar too high for this to compete as far as San Francisco chases. Even the one in the Chevy Chase movie Foul Play was more fun and exciting. AVTAK's chase is like an outtake from The Blues Brothers.

[quantumofsolace]

whatculture mar 25 2013

Bond movie with very little to love, it does have a handful of good things about it, plus some pretty mediocre performances.But Christopher Walken is the saving grace, playing the ruthless industrialist Max Zorin, who plans to destroy California’s Silicon Valley.he starts off as a cool, collected fellow who’s scheming while appearing to those outside to be just a normal businessman.Until near the climax, when he sees all his work coming undone, at which point he snaps, and faces off against Bond in a dramatic conclusion on an airship.Walken plays both sides to his character equally well, and at some points single-handedly carries the film.

[Turn]

whatculture mar 25 2013

Bond movie with very little to love, it does have a handful of good things about it, plus some pretty mediocre performances.But Christopher Walken is the saving grace, playing the ruthless industrialist Max Zorin, who plans to destroy California’s Silicon Valley.he starts off as a cool, collected fellow who’s scheming while appearing to those outside to be just a normal businessman.Until near the climax, when he sees all his work coming undone, at which point he snaps, and faces off against Bond in a dramatic conclusion on an airship.Walken plays both sides to his character equally well, and at some points single-handedly carries the film.

This is the only film in the series where I find the villain more interesting than Bond himself. I've actually forwarded to just the scenes with Walken/Zorin on DVD and Blu-ray. Makes that long stretch he's absent in San Francisco seem even longer.

[Shaun Forever]

All the goings on at Zorin's stable, especially the horse race (Bond against Zorin) are superb.

[S K Y F A L L]

Does anyone even find it funny when Bond`s car gets split in half? I wasn't really a fan of May Day but its one of my favorite Moore films. I don't even mind the California Girls music.

[DaveBond21]

I love the scenes at the French chateau - best bit of the movie.

 

Biggest scare in any Bond movie - Stacey's cat on the staircase!!

[thecasinoroyale]

Let's love the teaser,  featuring a peculiar deleted intro between Bond and Ivanova in the hot-tub towards the end:

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=sIWFLMBdGUM

[Odd Jobbies]

I'll be brief? It played safe by keeping Moore and wasted of a great villain by mismatching him with a really old guy.

 

Great title song is the best thing i can say, but even ones satisfaction in that is short lived as we're soon back in Carry On Bond land with the Beach Boys.

 

With Walken and Duran firing on all cylinders it was a great opportunity to bring more new talent; writers, directors and Bond. But, no, lets just bring in the bacon instead.

[Turn]

I see AVTAK getting a lot more love these days, but to have been there 30 years ago like I was it was a lot like Odd Jobbies aptly describes it in the above post.

 

One of the best summaries was by a US film critic on his television review series saying "It's like they said 'come on guys, time to make another Bond movie,'".

[Odd Jobbies]

I see AVTAK getting a lot more love these days, but to have been there 30 years ago like I was it was a lot like Odd Jobbies aptly describes it in the above post.

 

One of the best summaries was by a US film critic on his television review series saying "It's like they said 'come on guys, time to make another Bond movie,'".

Yep, i was there too, if only a naive 14 year old. Bond had become more a financial concern, than an artistic one. And as we've since seen in the banking world - they never kill the golden goose - it has to go belly up under it's own weight before it's allowed a revision.

 

But it wasn't all down to Moore's age, as they found when they changed the actor, but not approach with TLD. 

[DavidJones]

Roger looks a bit odd in this film. It seems he had a facelift before shooting (hence why the mole has gone - it would've moved!) and his eyes are more light blue, his hair with blonde highlights, and he has a strange stare. He looked fine in Octopussy and The Naked Face so I'm not sure why felt the need to go under the knife (again?).

[Grard Bond]

I don't think that is thru, because in interviews for Dutch television he looked better and more "normal" than in this movie. So I think to hide his age they probably thought let's put a lot of make-up on his face to let him look younger, but they achieved the opposite.

[Simon]

The mole had to go due to some health condition and he did, probably at the same time, go under the knife.

 

That said, even though the eyes were a little less flinty, I think it was still a good and natural job.

[DavidJones]

Roger's never been open about his face-lifts, despite his self-deprecating humour. Perhaps he considers it private. He did say once, though, wryly: "I looked like I'd just been to Switzerland for three facelifts. I only had two!"  (shown on a documentary after a clip of Moonraker - dunno on which specific film he was commenting on).

[Guy Haines]

Roger Moore seemed to have aged visibly in the two years between OP and AVTAK. That was the first impression I had when I watched AVTAK way back in 1985. Indeed the scenes around Zorin's chateau HQ seemed to unintentionally emphasise "age versus youth", with Moore's Bond and the even older Patrick Macnee's Tibbett against Zorin and May Day, who were quite a bit younger.

 

(Before anyone mentions it, though, I know that the henchmen Scarpine and Mortner were played by actors nearer the ages of Sir Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee, in the case of Willougby Gray as Mortner several years older than both, but I'm talking about principal characters as villains.)

 

I always thought OP was the time for Sir Roger to go out on a high (An "all time high"? ) The end with his Bond being rowed off into the sunset seemed apt. Maybe that was intended at the time. However, we got an extra Bond film from him two years later, and I'm not sure anyone else at the time could have carried that film off - indeed maybe audiences were not quite ready for a new Bond actor then.

[AMC Hornet]

 I'm not sure anyone else at the time could have carried that film off...

 

Ian Ogilvy - if he'd wanted it.

 

Especially in the scenes as James St. John-Smythe. It's hard to tell that Roger's Bond was trying to be more affable than usual, in order to persuade Zorin to underestimate him. Let Ogilvy be affable then and more serious for the rest of the film.

 

Dalton could have done it, but has anyone ever seen him be affable?

 

("Man, that guy's intensely affable!")

[glidrose]

I'm not sure anyone else at the time could have carried that film off...

 
Ian Ogilvy - if he'd wanted it.
 
Especially in the scenes as James St. John-Smythe. It's hard to tell that Roger's Bond was trying to be more affable than usual, in order to persuade Zorin to underestimate him . Let Ogilvy be affable then and more serious for the rest of the film.
 
Dalton could have done it, but has anyone ever seen him be affable?
 
("Man, that guy's intensely affable!")

I could not have said it better myself. While I too agree that AVTAK was one film too many for Rog, I do not understand why anybody thinks Dalton could have done it. And I especially don't understand people who would have preferred to see Dalton in Octopussy - he would have killed that film dead.

As for who could have carried AVTAK off, I still see a young Pierce Brosnan. It seems written for him.
 

Roger Moore seemed to have aged visibly in the two years between OP and AVTAK.

Nobody seems to have mentioned thus far that he had also lost much weight and that's what did it. Heavier-set people tend not to age as visibly as skinnier people. The weight loss, combined with a face peel & lift entirely explains why Moore looked as he did.

Also, in case none of you knew, people who have face lifts cannot lose or gain weight. Otherwise the face lift is no good.

http://www.realself....-after-facelift

 

I always thought OP was the time for Sir Roger to go out on a high (An "all time high"? ) The end with his Bond being rowed off into the sunset seemed apt.

Absolutely.
 

- indeed maybe audiences were not quite ready for a new Bond actor then.

I don't think it's necessarily that. More that there was nobody waiting in the wings.

[Guy Haines]

Must admit Ian Ogilvy didn't occur to me when I posted earlier, but yes I suppose he could have done it if he'd wanted to. Other than him, perhaps AVTAK would have had to change a bit to accommodate a new Bond with a different take on the role. "California Girls" in the PTC scene and Bond swinging from a fire truck ladder would probably have gone, and the Paris car chase might not have involved the incredible shrinking taxi!

 

One thing about AVTAK is it's a mix of the silly - mentioned above - with one or two really rather nasty bits. The Russian frogman thrown down the oil pipeline to be sliced up by the pump. The casual murder of Stacey Sutton's boss. The mass murder of Zorin's mine workers, with Zorin thoroughly enjoying it. (Roger Moore reputedly loathed that scene.) It's as if the film makers wanted a fun movie but with a "serious" award winning actor as the villain needed to emphasise that Max Zorin is a psychopath and had him act as one and do one or two really callous things to prove it.

[DavidJones]

With Roger's age, I don't think it helped that AVTAK was a very eighties film.

 

With the Charlie's Angels girl, the Duran Duran song, the microchips, Bond's leather jacket and Grace Jones, it was the most '80s of all five of the films they made in that decade (with the possible exception of the Key West scenes in LTK having a very Miami Vice flavour). And that, I would add, is part of its charm. Timelessness is all well and good, but it is interesting to see such contexualization.

 

Octopussy, in contrast, was emphatically period, as Eon tried to capture the feel and success of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

 

In that, aside from the topicality of the nukes, there were things which made it look - pleasingly - like the classic adventure thrillers of decades past: India was presented as Edwardian; the steam train evoked The 39 Steps and others; the Soviets being rather Nazi-esque. Also, Sootheby's is always very inter-war English no matter what year it might be outside of it. Even the song 'All Time High' could almost have been written in the '40s. Often, when seeing OP, I feel as though I'm watching The Saint (which is a good thing - it's my favourite TV show of all time), as seeing Moore in a traditional suite and looking much as he did twenty years earlier recalls to me his time as Simon Templar, and the '30s feel recalls novels like The Saint's Getaway.

[dtuba]

Lois Maxwell deserved a more dignified farewell. I also did not need to hear Roger and the creepily young Tanya Roberts play "drop the soap" in that final scene. Yuck.

Edited by dtuba, 18 April 2015 - 02:36 AM.

[Guy Haines]

Interesting point made by DavidJones above about AVTAK as the most '80s of the '80s Bonds. By process of elimination;

 

FYEO - we're barely into the 1980s so this seems like an attempt at a 1960s Bond with a late 70s backdrop. An obvious reaction to the excesses of its immediate predecessor. The reference to Tracy Bond at the start, even though that could have been included because there was a possibility that Roger Moore might not have returned for FYEO and some sort of link back to past times might be needed to anchor the new Bond actor to the series - of course it wasn't needed. And it struck me at the time that the flow from one action scene to the next seemed like a collection of potential PTC stunts that never were.

 

OP - I can't really add much to DavidJones comments above except that I agree - it did seem at times like a boys own adventure period piece. Might the addition of the "Flashman" author George MacDonald-Fraser to the screenwriting team have had something to do with it?

 

TLD - another case of a period piece, this time, certainly in the early stages 50s/60s cold war espionage transplanted into the mid 1980s. Of course the latter part of the film really is a period piece now - set as it is in Soviet occupied Afghanistan. I wonder how many of Bond's allies there would still be sympathetic now? How times change.

 

LTK - as pointed out "Miami Vice" late 80s. Some have commented that it didn't seem "Bondian" to have 007 tackle a Central American drug lord. I disagree. We can't put ourselves in the mind of Ian Fleming, but had he been around and writing Bond in the 1980s it would not have surprised me if he had researched the subject of the Colombian drug barons as a possible basis for a Bond novel. Thugs they may have been - like the gangsters of say, Diamonds Are Forever or The Spy Who Loved Me - but worth billions, and the drug problems in the UK would sooner or later have drawn 007's attention to them.

 

Which leaves AVTAK, and I can't add much more to what DavidJones has posted, except; yuppie villain into hi-tech, and Silicon Valley, just as it was coming into prominence. The French chateau scenes are a bit out of synch, unless you consider the gross excess of wealth the mid 1980s started generating, with our hi-tech baddie flaunting it.

[DaveBond21]

I'm from the North East of England, and for us, the 80's was the opposite of excess wealth!

 

In fact, it was a never-to- be-beaten low.

 

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