For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Following the excesses of The Spy Who Loved Me and especially Moonraker (1979) this feels like a stripped down Bond adventure.
It has a very Euro feel as if they'd given the directing gig to say Enzo Castellari and only a quarter of Moonraker's budget.
Action sequences usually involve cars or motorbikes and work well, the most memorable being the hillside car chase where Bond and Carole Bouquet are at the wheel of a yellow Citroen, whilst the finale involving Bond scaling a sheer cliff face to infiltrate the villains (Julian Glover) hideout is suitably tense.
The film also lacks the sex of earlier films, Bond even shuns Lynn Holly-Johnson when she's practically begging him. Speaking of lacking where's the Bond theme during the action sequences? Pretty much non-existent.
As far as grittier Bond films go this is certainly no License to Kill (1989) but for the most part it is pretty decent although on the grand scale of things it probably gets a little lost in OO7 history sandwiched between the incomparable Moonraker and the under appreciated but certainly grander Octopussy (1983).
|