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(Originally published by the Daily News on May 24, 1985. This story was written by Jan Herman.)
James Bond purists aside, Roger Moore is worth every wrinkle on his face in “A View to a Kill,” the seventh movie he has made in the Bond series and the most enjoyable since “Moonraker” back in the ’70s. His tongue-in-cheek screen presence as British Agent 007 still commands the sort of attention reserved for pop culture heroes.
If you don’t believe that, consider this: Whenever the handsome, aging Moore appears in a scene with Christopher Walken, who plays psychopathic Max Zorin, the baddest yuppie this side of Silicon Valley, he totally eclipses Walken. That’s not easy when Walken, an Oscar-winning actor, is made up to look like a peroxide albino.
New York Daily News published this on May 24, 1985.
Actress Tanya Roberts is shown in a scene from the 1985 James Bond series film "A View to a Kill."
Grace Jones in "A View to a Kill."
(©MGM/courtesy Everett)
But Grace Jones walks off with screen honors as May Day, an arch Amazonian. She is Zorin’s associate in a scheme to control the world’s supply of a special microchip that can survive an atomic blast and speed up racehorses. (Only a Bond film could make the connection.) Jones’ fierce body and savage glamor, plus a riveting glare that would stop a train, create an aura of outrageous treachery worthy of Bond’s most campy foes.
Relying more than ever on bold stunts, “A View to a Kill” begins with the trademark of the Bond films — a breathless sequence designed to bring you to the edge of your seat. This time Bond is being pursued by Soviet skiers across the snowy slopes of Siberia and the action is not only more exciting than usual but actually has to do with the story. It also ends like a lark in one of Bond’s patented escapes.
7 photos view gallery
Actors who have played James Bond
Before long we are treated to a daredevil climb up the Eiffel Tower — acrophobes beware — ending with a parachute jump into the Seine River; a wild fire-engine ride through the streets of San Francisco; and a dizzying scuffle at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on the stunning beauty of Chantilly, an 18th century French chateau whose stables are fit for royalty because the duke who built them believed he would be reincarnated as a horse.
If all this sounds like a dippy travelog, that’s because “A View to a Kill” is madly touristic, like most recent Bond films. In one interesting change however, Bond is strangely bereft of high-tech vehicles. Instead, the villain gets them: Walken has an inflatable, pocket-size dirigible that Hammacher Schlemmer could make a fortune with.
Tanya Roberts and Roger Moore in "A View to a Kill."
(United Artists/courtesy Everett Collection)
As for Bond’s glib wit, which has been running down lately, the screenwriters haven’t solved that problem. Some of his double entendres are older than Moore and one of them had to be used twice.