YMMV / A View to a Kill

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In The BBC documentary Premium Bond, Mark Gatiss stated that the film is more enjoyable if you see it not as a James Bond film, but a film about an elderly man convinced he's a secret agent.
  • At one point they mention Zorin was created by the Nazis as part of a "super soldier" program, which didn't really work as all the "super soldiers" ended up being psychopaths. In that case, is it really Zorin's fault he's so evil? Or is is he really just the victim of mad science and bad genetics?
• Awesome Music:
  • Duran Duran's opening song made it to #1 on the Billboard charts. Even the movie's strongest detractors will admit to the song being an undeniable highlight of the movie.
  • John Barry's score also counts, especially the recurring action theme with its cheesy, yet awesome guitar riffs. The soft instrumental version of the Duran Duran song by Barry is also melodic. Fans may recognise that the theme tune from On Her Majesty's Secret Service was adapted for use as the film's instrumental score.
  • "Wine with Stacey" is one of the most beautiful tracks in the franchise. It plays on the scenes where Bond makes love with May Day and Stacey Sutton; in the latter case, it also plays in the couple's romantic scenes, showing a sensitivity rarely seen in the Roger Moore Era.
• Complete Monster: Maximilian "Max" Zorin, the former KGB operative in charge of Zorin Industries, presents himself as an affluent and fashionable individual, but is in truth a vicious, greedy psychopath who will do anything to further his own gains. Abandoning the KGB in order to pursue his scheme to submerge Silicon Valley and monopolize the global microchip supply, not caring that his plan will cost millions of lives, Zorin proceeds to involve his investors in his scheme, having a detractor ejected from his airship when the latter refuses to co-operate. When James Bond and Stacey Sutton go to San Francisco city hall to investigate, Zorin kills a city official and a CIA Agent, framing Bond for the murders before setting the building on fire. After placing explosives along the Hayward and San Andreas fault lines, Zorin floods the mines where the explosives were placed, proceeding to gun down any fleeing employees, despite their loyalty, driven by a combination of resource disposal and schadenfreude, and allows his mistress May Day to die in an explosion alongside his remaining employees. When Bond sabotages his plot, Zorin attacks Bond and Sutton atop the Golden Gate Bridge with an axe. Despite his civilized façade, Zorin makes his mark as a particularly vicious individual.
• Critic-Proof: As was a common occurrence with the Bond movies starring Roger Moore, A View To A Kill is one of the worst-reviewed entries in the series, but it still grossed a decent $152.4 million at the box office, making it one of the highest-grossing movies of 1985.
• Damsel Scrappy: Stacey Sutton is definitely not one of the more popular Bond Girls. Even though her background as a geologist allowed her to piece together Zorin's plan to destroy Silicon Valley with an earthquake, she is still unpopular due to her constant loud screams that would make Scream Queens envious, in addition to needing to be constantly rescued by Bond. Scenes like her apparently not listening to a zeppelin a few feet away from her and the fact that all the other Bond Girls in the movie are more interesting than her also don't help.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Zorin and May Day are two of the most popular villains in the franchise, to the extent that they were made playable characters in video games. Some fans even mourn May Day's death for believing she could have been a good recurring antagonist in the franchise.
• Evil Is Cool: Zorin and May Day are almost unanimously agreed to be the two best things about this movie, stealing the show from Bond and Stacy. This must have been discovered early on, since Grace Jones was given higher billing than Tanya Roberts and is the one who appears on most of the movie posters with Bond (Jones was also much more famous than Roberts).
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Some fans have suggested James and Pola should have ended up together at the end, mainly because she's a lot more interesting than Stacy. Other fans also prefer Bond and May Day, and mourn her death moments after her redemption.
• Fetish Retardant:
  • Tanya Roberts is gorgeous, but her puffy 80s dresses and heavy makeup could kill any sex appeal not already wiped out by "JAMES!!! JAMES!!!"
  • All the scenes of Bond flirting, seducing or going to bed with the Bond Girls in this film are terribly uncomfortable because of Roger Moore's advanced age; he was up to 30 years older than the actresses. The scenes of Stacey and May Day sarcastically rejecting his flirting give the impression that he is an Dirty Old Man for them. Moore himself felt the same way: when he finally stepped down from the role of Bond, he cited, among other things, the fact that his characters' love interests were now young enough to be his granddaughters.
• Harsher in Hindsight: "You will come back to us, comrade. No one ever leaves the KGB." News flash, General Gogol; they did leave the KGB just as it was being officially dissolved in December 1991.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Christopher Walken's role as Max Shreck in Batman Returns could be considered a Shout-Out to Zorin, especially since not only are they both Corrupt Corporate Executives with the same birth name, but Shreck, too, is obsessed with more power (literally, as in electric power.)
  • In the film itself, microchips are being replaced with new ones that are supposedly impervious to electromagnetic pulses. Guess they didn't work out so well.
  • Allison Doody made her film debut as Jenny Flex in this film (the youngest Bond girl, to date), however, she doesn't spend much time with Roger Moore's Bond. A few years later, she'd play Dr. Elsa Schneider in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, who has sex with another Bond, Sean Connery.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many people who watch this movie only do so for Christopher Walken and Grace Jones as the villains. That and John Barry's awesome score.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A common point of criticism is that the plot is basically a remake of Goldfinger updated to replace gold with microchips.
• Les Yay: May Day takes Zorin killing her henchgirls very personally.
• LGBT Fanbase: May Day has probably had more drag queen impersonators than any other Bond Girl, due to her distinctive style, androgynous appearance, and Grace Jones herself being a queer culture icon.
• Love to Hate: Max Zorin stands out as one of the most psychotic villains that Bond has ever gone up against, yet his actor Christopher Walken puts on such an awesome performance that he becomes really enjoyable to watch onscreen.
• Magnificent Bastard: May Day is the monstrous Max Zorin's lover and main henchwoman who proves to be one of the most dangerous right-hand villains encountered by Bond. Sneaking into a restaurant and using a fake prop to kill a French detective meeting with Bond, May then escapes the pursuing agent by parachuting from the Eiffel Tower. May later uses a momentary distraction to sneak into Agent Tibbett's car and murder him, using the car to lead Bond into a trap that nearly kills him. May later ambushes General Gogol, forcing him to leave Zorin alone and later lures an investor who backed out of Zorin's plan to his death. May murders CIA agent Chuck Lee, hiding his body so Bond will be led into a trap Zorin has set. When Zorin betrays her and kills her friends, May turns on Zorin and sacrifices herself to sabotage his plans, asking Bond to take revenge for her and spending her last moments glaring at her treacherous former lover.
• Memetic Mutation: "More! More powah!"
• Moral Event Horizon: Probably the most famous crossing of the Horizon in the canon: to make absolutely sure their plan to induce an artificial earthquake to destroy Silicon Valley is kept quiet, Max Zorin and Scarpine machine-gun all the lesser henchmen, several of whom (such as Bob Conley, Jenny Flex, and Pan Ho) we'd gotten to know somewhat throughout the film, while cackling like hyenas all the while.
• Narm:
  • The out-of-nowhere use of "California Girls" during the opening snowboard chase. It's not even the original, but a cover. Granted, the scene was effective enough that even hardcore snowboarders acknowledge it as the pivotal moment that allowed it to emerge from the underground (where it'd existed since the mid 1970s), but the "California Girls" cover was still rather cringeworthy, though. Not helping this choice was the fact that said song was played against an action sequence that takes place in Siberia.
  • The French detective who is killed at the Eiffel Tower when May Day flings a fake butterfly complete with a hook at his neck, which kills him instantly.
    Bond: There's a fly in his soup! (gives chase to May Day)
  • Roger Moore's grunts whenever Bond gets hurt are something that needs to be heard to be believed.
  • The car chase in Paris, where Bond commandeers a taxi which gets sliced in half as he pursues May Day, and is able to maintain his speed even with half the car missing. On top of the obvious stunt doubles and the sheer implausibility of it all, it makes for a really silly action sequence even by the franchise's standards.
  • Bond's cover at the chateau, "James St. John Smythe" (pronounced "Sinjin-Smythe").
  • The film's claim, with a completely straight face, that Max Zorlin can speak six languages 'with no accent'. Even ignoring Christopher Walken's reputation and treating the film by itself, it's a massive stretch to say that Zorlin has no accent.
  • The Title Drop has to be one of the most awkward ever.
    May Day: Wow. What a view!
    Max Zorin: To a kill!
  • Stacey Sutton's screams would be understandable in the situations portrayed by the film, but Tanya Roberts' intonation makes them seem comical after a while.
  • The scene of Stacy Sutton galloping into Bond's arms, absolutely and totally oblivious to the GIANT ZEPPELIN approaching right behind her until she's inevitably snatched up. Tanya Roberts reportedly had some choice words for the director making her look so idiotic.
  • During the climax, Dr. Mortner's cries of "MAAAAAAAAAX!" when Bond has Zorin on the ropes (which makes one wonder if Walken's odd laugh right before he slips and falls wasn't actually a case of Corpsing), followed by his attempt to blow up Bond with dynamite (complete with Mad Scientist face, all while ignoring the multiple assault rifles and other weapons in the safe he could have used instead), ending with Bond cutting the rope tying the blimp to the Golden Gate bridge) and... BOOM!. The whole idea of Mortner using dynamite seemed to tickle his actor as well, as he appears to be smiling during his last moments.
• Narm Charm: There are those who enjoy the whole snowboarding scene with "California Girls" playing in the backround.
• One-Scene Wonder: Russian agent Pola Ivanova. Her charisma in her brief appearance makes many fans feel that she deserved to be the main Bond Girl in the film instead of Stacey Sutton.
• Padding:
  • The events in Paris only further the plot by informing Bond of Zorin's horse racing, something which MI6 could have found out for him.
  • As noted by some, aside from the use of microchips in Max Zorin's scheme to implant them into his horses to enhance their stamina, his horse races are largely detached from his actual plan in Silicon Valley (and feel like something from a Dick Francis novel), yet it takes up nearly the entire first act of the movie.
  • The two KGB agents investigating Zorin's ties to Silicon Valley. The man is captured and killed by Zorin and May Day, while the woman escapes and turns out to be an old flame of Bond's, Pola Ivanova. Even though this is how Bond finds out about Zorin's plan to destroy Silicon Valley, the scene with Pola goes longer than necessary since she never appears again. The scene was intended to feature Anya Amasova, but Barbara Bach declined to reprise the role, and rather than scrapping the scene, we spend ten minutes watching Bond get it on with a random girl from his past.
• Questionable Casting:
  • An especially unfortunate case with Roger Moore himself, almost solely because he was 57 at the time of filming and no longer convincing in the part. After carrying the role for over ten years, Moore had actually considered resigning after the completion of Octopussy, only to be talked into one final outing. Moore made no secret of the fact that he too felt he had become too old to play Bond, even during filming, and admitted he should have been replaced well before this movie.
  • Tanya Roberts as Stacey Sutton, a state geologist in a performance little more convincing than Denise Richards playing the part of a nuclear physicist fourteen years later.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Dolph Lundgren (in his first film role) appears as one of the two KGB agents accompanying General Gogol in his meeting with Zorin.
  • A whistling girl is played by Carole Ashby, who would later be best known for playing Louise in 'Allo 'Allo!.
• Rooting for the Empire: With Bond being played by an older Roger Moore that doesn't convince in the action scenes and the main Bond Girl being a Damsel Scrappy, it is not difficult for the viewer to hope that the film will focus more on the scenes of the Large Ham villains Max Zorin and May Day.
• Sequelitis: Widely considered one of the worst Bond films, with Roger Moore's advanced age being one of the most frequent criticisms (even Moore himself thought he should have been replaced with a younger actor at least two films prior).
• Shocking Moments: Both the fire at San Francisco City Hall, which subsequently became one of its most famous appearances on the big screen, and the highly memorable Golden Gate Bridge fight.
• Signature Scene:
  • The mine massacre, noted for being one of the most violent scenes in any of the Bond films.
  • The final fight at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge between Bond and Zorin makes for a suitably memorable climax.
• So Bad, It's Good: There's enough goofiness and nonsensical bits on display here that some find it quite entertaining, if not always for the right reasons.
• So Okay, It's Average: Some fans regard the film as this: its lead actors turn in convincing performances and its score and action scenes are as good as ever, but the recycled plot and narm offsets it all and makes it seem stock by Bond standards.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • The title sequence. It's painful to watch the animation from the mid-80s if you know how beautiful those from the 70s (and even the ones made for the Dalton films afterwards) were.
  • Zorin's death by falling off the Golden Gate bridge looks impressive... until you notice he's just a dummy, complete with legs flapping about in the breeze. Same thing goes for the guy dropped out of the zeppelin earlier.
  • The film contains a few too many obvious rear-projection shots.
  • As impressive as the jump from the Eiffel Tower is, one can't help but notice the obvious diving board atop the tower deck. It's also quite apparent that May Day leaped from halfway up the tower, as opposed to the top deck where said board is clearly situated.
  • Bond and Stacey taking the fire truck over a rising draw bridge; the stunt is obviously completed with a ramp and shot to obscure its presence.
  • The blood pack didn't burst when the City Hall official is shot, so you see an unbroken red brick under the shirt when the squib fires.
  • During the fire truck chase, you can clearly make out a cameraman filming the stunt on an extended camera arm. In another shot when the fire truck clips the Chevron sign, you can see the camera crew perched on the ladder's rear cabin. And that's not even getting into all the brutally obvious rear-projection shots which looked terrible even for the time that these were still in wide use.
  • When Zorin blasts through the lakes, a depth charge can clearly be seen on the surface of the water near the fisherman's boat when the explosion from below sends the water skyward.
• Squick:
  • The 57-year-old Roger Moore making out with the 36-year-old Grace Jones. For what it's worth, he thought so too.
  • Many will also point to 57-year-old Moore making out with 35-year-old Tanya Roberts in the shower at the very end, especially since he'd spent most of the film up to this point in a more parental relationship with her (again, Moore himself thought so too, especially after learning he was older than her mother, which was one of the factors that drove him to hang up his tux after this film). The dialogue in the aforementioned shower scene really doesn't help, for a whole lot of other reasons.
    Bond: Drat, I dropped the soap.
    Stacey: I'll get it!
    Bond: ...THAT is not the soap.
• Strangled by the Red String: One of the most common criticisms against the film is that Bond and Stacey have few romantic interactions before the obligatory sex scene at the end of the film. And just like in For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore is much older than the lead actress (a 22-year gap between him and Tanya Roberts), making the couple's dynamic feel more like the relationship of father and daughter.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: The music playing during some of the action scenes sounds similar to the On Her Majesty's Secret Service theme.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Tibbet is played by Patrick Macnee, John Steed himself, the other (or perhaps other-other) iconic British spy character. Yet despite his charming, instant rapport with Roger Moore, he's stuck firmly in the sidekick role and killed not long after being introduced. He should have hung around longer and gotten more involved with the plot.
  • Pola Ivanova, the Russian KGB agent Bond meets halfway through the plot. She's charismatic, fun and much more interesting than Stacey, and could have teamed up with him, becoming the main Bond Girl for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, she disappears halfway through the plot after being deceived by Bond, and her plot is basically padding.
  • Some fans also think the fact that the second half of the film is set in San Francisco could have been a good opportunity for Felix Leiter to return, especially considering that the character has been absent since Live and Let Die (1973). Instead, a new generic agent is introduced, only for him to die quickly.
  • May Day is often seen by fans as one of the best Bond villan henchman, played perfectly by the charismatic and exotic Grace Jones, who devours all the scenes she's in. She could have been the main Bond Girl in the movie, as she's much more interesting than Stacey, deciding to help Bond after realizing that Zorin doesn't care about her. She could even have survived and become a recurring character like Jaws. Unfortunately, she dies after her moment of redemption at the end of the movie.
  • Stacey Sutton begins the movie as a strong, independent woman who rejects Bond's romantic flirtations and threatens him with a gun when he breaks into her house. For a moment it looks like we'll have a new Melina Havelock in the franchise... and then she has to be saved by Bond when Zorin's henchmen invade her house, and after that she becomes a new Tiffany Case: a woman who screams for Bond's help and needs to be saved all the time. Even her unraveling Zorin's plan in the end is not enough to make up for it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • This blog post points out that the scenario of an ageing Bond forced to confront both a younger opponent and his own increasing frailties and mortality could have made a potentially very interesting movie / swan song for Roger Moore in the role, had the producers actually went there. This idea would later be used in Skyfall.
  • You also have to wonder about how the film might have been if Moore had retired as planned and Timothy Dalton (and the Darker and Edgier tone he brought with him) had been in the role. Especially since Walken and Dalton bear a passing resemblance to each other physically while being fair- and dark-haired, respectively.
  • Roger Moore and Patrick Macnee working together as secret agents! Then Macnee's Godfrey gets offed criminally early.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Between the Duran Duran theme song, Tanya Roberts' feathery bangs, and Grace Jones playing a major villain, this is by far the most 80s Bond film released in the decade (there's also Silicon Valley being the main target screaming out "hey, it's the computer age!" and, for the nerds, Stacey's Apple IIc).
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Zorin gunning down dozens of his own men for the hell of it and throwing a Russian spy's lover into a turbine for fun.

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