The Bond retrospective - Number 11

It gets harder from here...

11. For Your Eyes Only

On first impressions, you would think a woman holding a crossbow whilst wearing bikini bottoms backwards would indicate a bad film, but the rather raunchy cover image gives a false impression about John Glen’s directorial debut. There is a crossbow, and swimwear…but it’s somehow better than that, For Your Eyes Only is in fact one of the better laid out Bond films, and one of Moore’s best performances. It’s a good old fashioned spy flick with few gadgets based on human greed, rather than elaborate world domination plans that involve lasers. Here, we watch Bond chase down a Greek smuggler attempting to sell secret technology to the soviets, and there’s even a bit of a personal edge thrown in through the Bond girl, Melina. The film is much faster-paced than it’s predecessors, crammed with car and ski chases, and yet it doesn’t feel rushed, nor does Moore suffer horribly from his age, which I feel is a deliberate lighting technique or something, the only time it’s noticeable is the cringe-worthy subplot featuring Lynn-Holly Johnson as the too-young skater, Bibi. Overall it’s a decent, relatively gritty film with a sizeable amount of action that’s easy on the camp, although the opening with Blofeld (who you can’t see for ‘legal reasons’) is one of the few openings that detracts from the main film. It all ends with a rather subdued, some might even say poignant, meeting with our old friend General Gogol, no need for massive explosions or over-the-top deaths here. Although you could point out that’s why nobody remembers who the actual bad guy is…or this film in general

Pros:
Realistic, understated, yet action-packed
The Thatcher scene…

Cons:
One of those last few ones you can never remember during pub quizzes
Blofeld…electric wheelchair…helicopter
The Thatcher scene