James Bond 007 - Im Angesicht des Todes

James Bond sets out to stop a psychopathic business man and a successful horse breeder. Stars Roger Moore and Christopher Walken.

Moore was clearly too old for this role but the film has all the elements of a great Bond film. An excellent villain in Walken, a dastardly plot, beautiful girls and amazing locations.

A lot of fun. Grace Jones is a great henchman.

A View To A Kill commonly comes under as one of Roger Moore's weakest Bond films, however in my opinion, that is completely wrong. It is one of the most best of his films. The action is stronger than many previous films, the music is good and the locations such as France and San Francisco. Roger Moore is great as a Bond actor, especially down to the fact he is 57. Christopher Walken makes a fantastic and one of the very best villains. Overall, there are some bits which are a bit slow, but lots of it is exciting, strong and thrilling.

I can say I am a Bond fan, seeing as I own twenty of the twenty-two movies currently on DVD (as of writing this review). So far the only film I haven't enjoyed in the series has been Roger Moore's Moonraker, just because of the over the top silliness and the obvious sell-out to appeal to moviegoers who had just seen Star Wars.

Upon seeing 'A View to a Kill' I instantly was prepared for the worst, and let me tell you this certainly is a bad Bond film. Moore is showing his obvious age, making the relations with his leading ladies undeniably awkward, to say the least. The plot is as simple as they come, and none of the actors are really given any chance with the dialogue they have been given. Moore has very few witty comments in this movie, and most of the other characters are cardboard cut outs.

One thing however manages to make this film better than Moonraker. This is the under-appreciated role of Max Zorin, played by the always wonderful Christopher Walken. I can say without a doubt in my mind that Walken is the single saving grace in this film, exhibiting everything any good Bond villain needs.

Exotic locations: Check! Unique henchmen/henchwoman: Check! Surrounded by beautiful girls: Check Cold and ruthless attitude: Double check! Heartless and chilling disregard for henchmen life: CHECK Walken, with a horrid script (every character in this movie is poorly written) is able to create one of the best Bond villains I've ever seen! The way he talks, the way he acts, everything he does showcases his undeniable talent. So for a movie like 'A View to a Kill' Walken's performance is like shifting through sewage and finding a large diamond ring.

It is because of Walken that I recommend this movie and give it a relatively good rating. Everything else about this film is really forgettable. You'd think a super-strong female henchwoman would make for a memorable moment in the franchise, but this is so poorly handled that she winds up as one of the most forgettable characters in the series, as opposed to one of the best.

Roger Moore, unfortunately, ends his career on Bond in perhaps his own worst performance, which is undeniably sad. It seems that all Bond actors seem to end their careers on the lowest of their films (Connery with 'Diamonds are Forever', Brosnan with 'Die Another Day', and though Dalton was a great Bond, I have to say 'License to Kill' was a weak film) but with those films it has always been more the scripts fault, as opposed to the actor's talent (all three tried their best with the material). Moore is just plain stiff in his last entry! The man seems to have totally lost interest in playing the character by this point.

I consider 1979's 'Moonraker' Moore's worst, but like 'Diamonds are Forever', and 'Die Another Day', Moonraker was more the fault of the script writers; not the Bond actor. In 'A View to a Kill' Moore really shows that he is no longer capable of playing the part, and that is the saddest part of the film (especially seeing Moore seducing girls much younger than himself, with his developing turkey neck becoming quite obvious). Walken makes the movie an enjoyable, B-grade action movie, but as for Bond, this is where it becomes an undeniable fact that Moore has overstayed his welcome as Agent 007.

Moore deserved a better ending, and the fact is that he just shouldn't have come back for this film. Octopussy may have actually been a decent departure, but Moore decided to try one last time and it really is the straw that breaks the Moore Bond's back. Enough was enough, and Moore failed to recognize when he should have cried "when!" I give this film a decent rating for the performance of Christopher Walken, but everything else is very low, and forgettable. Go and see it for Walken, but it is sad to see Moore's finally desperate breaths as he tries to keep the character going one last time.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs.

Revisited it recently.

This is the fourteenth in the Bond series and the final appearance of Roger Moore as James Bond.

In this movie Bond has to deal with a villain Zorin, who is planning to blow up Silicon Valley. (I think he is fed up with the geeks n nerds).

Apart from Zorin none of the henchmen are noteworthy.

This one's a bit violent

The main villain Zorin, a sadistic psychopath (played smoothly by Christopher Walken) displays a near-total lack of loyalty to his own men n shoots hundreds of people with machine guns n that too with a smile.

A man gets minced in an underwater exhaust fan.

In this movie Bond does an amazing horse hurdle race.

It has a lovely pre credit scene of that of a breathtaking ski chase.

It has a spectacular chase up and down the Eiffel Tower which must have inspired the parkour chase sequence in Casino Royale.

The climactic fight scene on Golden Gate Bridge is very well done.

This movie is Dolph Lundgren's first on-screen role, playing General Gogol's KGB bodyguard Venz but without any dialogues.

He is present before the iconic dialogue, "No one ever leaves the KGB".

In this movie Bond gets to cool off with Mary Stavin, Fiona Fullerton, Tanya Roberts n Grace Jones (A true Amazonian female n better than the fake Gal Gadot. Grace Jones was the first sexually aggressive Bond girl, evidenced by her reversal of positions - she climbed on top).

Many fellas say that Muad Adams is present in the movie as an extra n uncredited of that of a passerby. I tried but didn't notice her.

Some info on Zorin: Max Zorin is a sharp businessman, operating on the microchip market. He is highly intelligent n acts very fast cos he is the product of a Nazi medical experimentation during World War II, in which pregnant women were injected with massive quantities of steroids in an attempt to create "super-children." Most of the pregnancies failed while the few surviving babies grew to become extraordinarily intelligent-but also psychopathic.

After the war, Hans Glaub aka Carl Mortner, the German scientist who conducted the experiments, raised a young Zorin. Zorin was later trained by KGB agents.

James Bond -Roger Moore- in his last appearance, the first was ¨Live and let Die¨ . This new mission takes him to France and USA ,where he must fight the stylish villainous Max Zorin (Christopher Walken). After an impressive adventure in the Arctic , extravagant agent OO7 is assigned by MI6 : M (Bernard Lee), Minister of Defence (Geoffrey Keen) , Q (Desmond LLewelyn) , to a dangerous mission , concerning microchips : It's a silicon integrate circuit essential to all modern computers , and until recently , all microchips were susceptible to damage from the intense magnetic pulse of a nuclear explosion . One burst in outer space over UK and everything with a microchip in it , from the modern toaster to sophisticated computers and the defence systems would be rendered absolutely useless . UK would be paralysed at the Russians mercy , that's why one of the private defence contractor , came up with this : a chip totally impervious to magnetic pulse damage . Placed on the micro-comparator and compared with the chip Bond recovered from the body of 003 in Siberia , bringing the two images together resulted are identical , six months ago a company was acquired by an Anglo-French combine , Zorin industries . Max Zorin is a perfect baddie, here is his biography (the film warns neither the name nor any other character is meant to portray a real company or actual person) : Born in Dresden , fled from East Germany in the sixties , ex-KGB agent , nowadays is immensely rich , he actually is a product of a genetic Nazi experiment , French passport , he's a leading French industrialist , a staunch anti-communist with influential friends in the government,speak at least five-languages , no accent , now he deals the Bourse and the City, made his first fortune in oil and gas and second in electric and hi-tech . Zorin celebrates a reunion with magnates , he explains them ¨the project main strike¨aboard a private blimp, they pay 100 million dollars , except one , who will be rewarded with unfortunate finale .Other characters are as follows : Stacey Sutton (a beauty Tanya Roberts) , a geologist in charge of supervision oil refineries , she discovers the Zorin plan : a bomb explosion and originate an earthquake destroying California's Silicon Valley . May Day (Grace Jones) , she's an art martial expert , similar Zorin , her origin is a genetic programme . Scarpine (Patrick Bauchau) is the Zorin's chief security , he's as baddie as him . Sir Godfrey Tibbett (Patrick Mcnee : Avengers) , MI6 agent accompanies to Bond , he's disguised as a chauffeur to enter the Zorin's properties .

Besides , there shows up habitual in Bond series : Louis Maxwell (MonneyPenny) , Geoffrey Keen , Desmond Llewellyn , Walter Gotell (General Gogol) and , adding , the gorgeous Bond girls : Fiona Fullerton , Alison Doody (Indiana Jones and the last Crusade) , among others . The highlights of the film are the following ones : the breathtaking May Day scape in parachute with pursuit by Bond , the horse races with continuous set ups against OO7 ; the Town Hall's burning with risked rescue of Stacey Sutton by James Bond , and, of course , the confrontation-denouement over San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge and fighting on a dirigible . The film contains action-packed , apocalyptic and overwhelming scenarios along with the typically glossy ingredients of the series , but Roger Moore looks a little boring , in fact it results to be his Bond's last film . It packs colorful , spectacular cinematography by Alan Hume and appropriate -as usual- musical score by John Barry . Main title song is catching and performed by Duran Duran . The motion picture was professionally directed by John Glen .