Released in 1981, this was Roger Moore's fifth outing as James Bond, Agent 007. In my opinion, he started out with two reasonable installments in the franchise, "Live and Let Die" and "The Man with the Golden Gun", and then the franchise improved with "The Spy Who Loved Me". Sadly, however, the James Bond movie franchise had a hard fall after that with "Moonraker". I would say "For Your Eyes Only", the first one made after that highly criticised sci-fi Bond film, turned out to be an improvement, but not as much of an improvement as I hoped for when I watched it recently.
A British military spy ship sinks near a Warsaw Pact country after hitting a mine, and the ATAC, a communications system, goes down with it. Whoever gets their hands on this device will have control over all Polaris nuclear missiles! So, a marine archaeologist named Sir Timothy Havelock is asked by the British government to locate the wreck of the ship, but before he can send in his report, he and his Greek wife are killed by a Cuban hit-man named Hector Gonzales, leaving their daughter, Melina, who survives the attack! James Bond is then assigned to recover the ATAC, before it ends up in the wrong hands! On his mission, he meets Melina Havelock, who is seeking to avenge the murder of her parents, and the two team up for the investigation. Obviously, a number of life-threatening challenges await, with enemies sometimes nearby!
The opening sequence, before the theme song, shows Bond leaving flowers at his late wife's grave, and going from there to a battle against a familiar foe. This opening sequence is promising, and ends rather humorously. However, from there, the film goes into the theme song, a soft ballad performed by Sheena Easton, which seems out of place in a spy thriller, especially coming right after that opening sequence, which doesn't quite leave the viewer in the mood for a song like that. Through the rest of the 2 hr.+ film, I can't say there aren't any thrilling moments. In fact, there are quite a few of those, such as more than one memorable chase scene. As you would probably expect from a Bond film starring Moore, there's also humour, especially at the end, I would say. Unfortunately, with the thrills and the laughs, there are also some flaws. Bibi Dahl, the teenage ice-skater who appears frequently in the film, I found a tad annoying, not funny (like she's apparently supposed to be), and I know I'm not alone. Also, the scene where Bond and Melina meet underwater with romantic music put to it is just ridiculous!
Clearly, "For Your Eyes Only" is more popular than the widely lambasted "Moonraker", and I'm sure many consider it a vast improvement after that film, but not me, I can only consider it a slight improvement, not quite enough to put the franchise back on track. The three flaws I've mentioned aren't quite enough to describe why I'm not too impressed with this 1981 spy thriller, but I'm not exactly sure how to fully explain the rest. Well, as usual, this Bond film is rather long at over two hours, and this is one of the cases where they just couldn't quite keep it consistent enough throughout its long run. I don't know what else to say about this particular installment in the long official James Bond movie franchise, except that if you like spy thrillers, this one might do, but you also just might find that certain flaws really get in the way at times.
A British military spy ship sinks near a Warsaw Pact country after hitting a mine, and the ATAC, a communications system, goes down with it. Whoever gets their hands on this device will have control over all Polaris nuclear missiles! So, a marine archaeologist named Sir Timothy Havelock is asked by the British government to locate the wreck of the ship, but before he can send in his report, he and his Greek wife are killed by a Cuban hit-man named Hector Gonzales, leaving their daughter, Melina, who survives the attack! James Bond is then assigned to recover the ATAC, before it ends up in the wrong hands! On his mission, he meets Melina Havelock, who is seeking to avenge the murder of her parents, and the two team up for the investigation. Obviously, a number of life-threatening challenges await, with enemies sometimes nearby!
The opening sequence, before the theme song, shows Bond leaving flowers at his late wife's grave, and going from there to a battle against a familiar foe. This opening sequence is promising, and ends rather humorously. However, from there, the film goes into the theme song, a soft ballad performed by Sheena Easton, which seems out of place in a spy thriller, especially coming right after that opening sequence, which doesn't quite leave the viewer in the mood for a song like that. Through the rest of the 2 hr.+ film, I can't say there aren't any thrilling moments. In fact, there are quite a few of those, such as more than one memorable chase scene. As you would probably expect from a Bond film starring Moore, there's also humour, especially at the end, I would say. Unfortunately, with the thrills and the laughs, there are also some flaws. Bibi Dahl, the teenage ice-skater who appears frequently in the film, I found a tad annoying, not funny (like she's apparently supposed to be), and I know I'm not alone. Also, the scene where Bond and Melina meet underwater with romantic music put to it is just ridiculous!
Clearly, "For Your Eyes Only" is more popular than the widely lambasted "Moonraker", and I'm sure many consider it a vast improvement after that film, but not me, I can only consider it a slight improvement, not quite enough to put the franchise back on track. The three flaws I've mentioned aren't quite enough to describe why I'm not too impressed with this 1981 spy thriller, but I'm not exactly sure how to fully explain the rest. Well, as usual, this Bond film is rather long at over two hours, and this is one of the cases where they just couldn't quite keep it consistent enough throughout its long run. I don't know what else to say about this particular installment in the long official James Bond movie franchise, except that if you like spy thrillers, this one might do, but you also just might find that certain flaws really get in the way at times.