A View to a Kill

British super agent James Bond (Roger Moore) investigates an industrialist (Christopher Walken) with a sinister plan for California’s Silicon Valley.

A View to a Kill, the fourteenth film in the long-running James Bond franchise, marked the sixth and final appearance of star Roger Moore as Bond. Unfortunately, he goes out on low point.

Borrowing its plot from earlier entry Goldfinger, this installment sees a fifty-seven-year-old Moore sleepwalking through the various set pieces which themselves are derivative of previous Bond pictures. Compounding things, Moore has next to no charisma with female leads Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones, and villain Christopher Walken is remarkably subdued in what could have been a tour-de-force performance given his manic energy.

Granted, there are some good moments. Former Avengers TV star Patrick Macnee is welcome in the role of Bond’s local sidekick, and Walken does have a good scene opposite some Russian agents, but overall this feels like a formulaic, by-the-numbers exercise.

Thus, aside from the great theme song by Duran Duran, there’s little to recommend A View to a Kill. Bond enthusiasts will likely want to give it a look, if only for its trivia value as Moore’s last appearance, but everyone else should just skip this one entirely.