Both directed by
John Glen (b. 1932 - ), these films were
Roger Moore's last outings as James Bond. Some have said that Moore was a bit "too up-in-age" to play Bond, but it isn't an issue for me. If the producers were OK with Moore as Bond, then so am I. In a bit of wishful thinking perhaps, I like to imagine that Moore felt he had 2 more things to accomplish before he "retired" as Bond: (1) to have an adventure in India (as in 1983's
Octopussy) and (2) to work alongside his friend and
Avengers star
Patrick MacNee (as in 1985's
View, a highlight of the film). On to the capsule reviews...
Octopussy
In this 007 action-comedy-mystery, Bond is determined to uncover the connection between a jewel-obsessed billionaire (
Louis Jourdan) and the titular circus entrepreneur (
Maud Adams). For awhile, it's uncertain who the real villain is. It was hard for me to accept Gaston from
Gigi as a Bond villain, so I was relieved when another baddie stepped into the picture - a Soviet General Orlov (
Steven Berkoff) who wants to set off a bomb in a circus (and comes darn-near close to doing so). If that's not enough, there's also Kamal's dice-crunching henchman, a blond mistress, a pair of knife-throwing circus goons, and a guy with a buzz-saw yo-yo. Phew! How does Bond ever survive all this? You have to see the movie to find out who helps him out (Hint: the answer is in the title). A good deal of the action takes place in India: there's a car chase on the streets and a jungle chase where Bond comes face-to-face with the tiger from
The Life of Pi. There's also a cool fight on top of a train. I would have been really disappointed if there were no octopuses in the film, but alas, there is one in a tank, and it attacks a bad guy on the face towards the end of the film.
Recommended.
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A View To A Kill
Christopher Walken plays Max Zoren, a psychopathic billionaire who wants to take over Silicon Valley for his own computer enterprise. Channeling Lex Luther in 1978's
Superman, he wants to create an earthquake to accomplish his evil scheme (and comes darn close to doing so). But unlike Lex, Max is a former KGB agent. Bond teams with
Patrick MacNee (posing as Bond's valet) and infiltrate Walken's estate and shipping plant where they discover a steroid lab. Not surprisingly, Max's accomplice - and lover - is a very muscular
Grace Jones as May Day, appropriately creepy. There is some comic relief, too, about as much as there was in
Octopussy. But the movie is not all fun-and-frolics. In one disturbing scene, Max guns down his mine workers in cold blood. Max Zoren is pure evil. Plenty of action, including a ski chase, car chases on the streets of Paris and San Francisco, and a cool equestrian race with Bond on horseback in Max's obstacle course of death.
. Recommended.
For a review of the Blu-ray and all the cool special features,
click here for a review from the AV Forums site.
Read a review from Films on the Box
