BlogalongaBond / A View To A Kill: Occasionally Starring Roger Moore

Well thank Christ that's over. It's not that the last seven Bond films haven't been fun - not one of them was as bad as watery snoozathon Thunderball - but let's be honest: Roger Mortis has finally set in. This incarnation of cinema's favourite secret agent is no more. This is an ex-Bond.

It's not even Rodge's fault (he graciously noted that he was "only about four hundred years too old for the part") - the poor bastard had been trying to escape since 1979, but Cubby Broccoli never had the balls to choose another Bond. As a result of that cowardice, and combined with the fact that Moore is nearly three years older than Sean Connery, James Bond went from a prowling, 32-year-old sex puma in 1962 to a shuffling, 57-year-old sex tortoise in 1985 without ever making reference to his own advancing years or behaving accordingly. I'm all for equal opportunities for the elderly, but not if it means watching a man old enough to be my dad making saucytime with a girl ten years younger than me. Sorry Dad, but that's just wrong.

I wouldn't have minded so much if Bond had got it on with anyone of a similar age to his own, but Broccoli and his various writers and directors simply refused to acknowledge that the character ever aged. Look at this graph, in which the red bars represent Roger Moore's age throughout his tenure, while the green bars represent the ages of the actresses with whom he was required to simulate carnal intimacy:

The Roger Moore Paedograph

I mean that's just embarrassing for all of us. By A View To A Kill, Moore was so ancient that the amount of work put in by the hair, make up and lighting departments deserved awards for flattery, as these stills demonstrate:

But enough of this blatant ageism. Roger Moore's seniority is far from the only problem with A View To A Kill: Tanya Roberts is far and away the worst Bond girl ever; there's a Frenchman called Mr Aubergine; we're expected to believe that Bond recorded himself snoring for hours as a cover for sneaking out of his room at night; Grace Jones tries a Russian accent for her first line then doesn't bother again; there's the series' most nonsensical mention of the film's title in casual dialogue; comedy incompetent cops are back, from whom Bond attempts to escape by melting into the crowds in a massive, unwieldy fire truck with its siren blaring, and we're forced to watch the least sexy sex scene in Bond history.

You're not the only one rolling your eyes, mate

I haven't even mentioned the worst thing ever to happen in a Bond film ever, because I can barely bring myself to, but suffice to say it's difficult to listen to The Beach Boys these days without wincing in pain.

The thing that stands out the most about A View To A Kill, though, is the frequent attempts to make us believe that a near-pensioner is executing the film's typically amazing stunts. It's almost as if director John Glen knew he'd never fool us so he just didn't bother trying, allowing so many obvious shots of stuntmen to slip through the edit that it's a wonder they weren't all credited as James Bond in the end crawl. Let's take six completely random shots of Bond in action in the film and see how many of them actually feature Roger Moore:

Nope.

Hmmm.

Seriously?

Fairly certain that's Vladimir Putin.

Not even close.

I think this guy fixed my boiler last winter.

Extrapolate these findings and the shocking truth becomes clear: Roger Moore never actually appeared in A View To A Kill at all. Yet it still made pots of cash at the box office, and for that we must be grateful, because it convinced Cubby Broccoli that he could make a successful Bond film without Rodge. Taking this to its logical conclusion, he decided to hire an actual actor for the next film - but would this brave new dawn actually just mean more cock jokes and teen-shagging pensioners, or would it kick the living daylights out of the series, resulting in the greatest Bond film to date?

Take a wild guess.

Duran Duran's theme song

Simon Le Bon's lyrics might sound like the ramblings of a madman and the baffling video is a perfect example of why pop stars shouldn't attempt acting, but the song itself is a fabulous burst of fluoro-pop made doubly welcome by the fact that it's the first Bond theme in over a decade that isn't a soppy ballad. John Taylor's nimble basslines and Nick Rhodes' excitable synthesisers are at complete odds with the clunking codgertoss that follows, but for three minutes and ten seconds A View To A Kill is back-combed mullet-raising entertainment.
Bonus LOL: Whoever chose the image for the 7" single label gave us a cock joke worthy of Rodge himself, though it only became apparent when you placed the record on your turntable:

Patrick Macnee

Casting Britain's other Greatest Secret Agent alongside Roger Moore was a stroke of genius. Macnee had been winking at Bond throughout The Avengers, and finally he got his chance to join in the fun. In a perfect world there would be a spin-off series of films starring Moore and Macnee as Bond and John Steed in their 80s, fighting crime, attempting to nob 20-year-old girls and forgetting where they parked the car. Although to be honest, A View To A Kill isn't far from that already.

Uh... the length of Roger Moore's

and Grace Jones' legs in this poster?

I've run out of amazing things to say about A View To A Kill. Those legs are very long though.

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