Director: John Glen
Cast: Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet, Topol, Julian Glover
Have I Seen it Before: Yes... There’s a stretch of time in the mid 1990s where I would watch and record any Bond film that appeared on TNT. Without those marathons, I might never have viewed some of the middle-era Roger Moore films.
Did I Like It: Now comes the part in my review of a Roger Moore Bond film where I talk about how I don’t care for him as Bond. He’s too funny, and in that preening sort of way where he thinks he’s pretty funny, too. Sort of like Dane Cook with a vodka martini and a slightly less misogynistic misanthropy. I loathe Moonraker (1979) for feeling the need to chase the Star Wars (1977) and I think his best entry is the one everyone seems to shrug at, his final entry, A View to a Kill (1985), mainly because Moore plays against type. As such, For Your Eyes Only was never in my pantheon of go-to entries to re-watch.
As I continue to read through Nobody Does It Better: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized History of James Bond I was surprised to hear everyone talk about this entry as if it was a return to the form of more Fleming-esque source material, like From Russia With Love (1963) or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969).
Then I re-ran my DVD, and I’ll be damned. This is the one where the pre-credits sequence has Bond getting his long overdue revenge on a maniacal villain complete with pet cat. We all know the fiend is Blofeld, but because the morass that became the rights to Thunderball and the larger SMERSH/SPECTRE lore, he goes unnamed. It’s a pretty good beginning to the movie, especially when its as close to coming up against Blofeld as Moore ever got.
The rest of the film is a smaller story (far smaller than the ridiculous previous entry, Moonraker) and that’s a welcome change for Moore. I do get the same sense of ennui that I feel during the last half of nearly every Moore entry (and for that matter, Brosnan as well), but even Moore’s penchant for humor worked better than it does at other times. I’ll be damned if that last moment with Margaret Thatcher talking to a parrot didn’t having me laughing, and that typing the phrase “Margaret Thatcher talking to a parrot” didn’t have me laughing all over again. So, good job, Roger Moore-era Bond. You got me.
Am I starting to like Roger Moore’s entries? Is that what happens when people get older? Will I start thinking Moonraker is actually worth my time? Surely not.