![]() ![]() The women, the snow, the fruits: all a passing reminder of the one woman he would have given it up for. He scours the earth, searching for an answer to the crime committed against more than a decade earlier. With Eyes, the journey for Bond is as revealing as it is terrifying and occasionally comic. Unlike Moonraker – which wallowed in excess and senseless action from the first frame to the last – Eyes pays close attention to the film’s central narrative, offering Bond a rare chance to exhibit a form of character arc, and Moore – always a superior actor than he or his critics ever gave him credit for – laces himself remorse, every eyebrow raise more of a reflection of his ineffectuality than his bravura. We have Melania Havelock, deprived of the parents who taught her to swim we have Aristotle Kristatos, all curved smiles and proverbs, masking his family in his deceptions and we have Bond, visibly older and sadder looking than he had appeared before. But hey ho!)Īngular-minded in it’s direction, the film uses two short stories to guide the film, one to provide the backdrop, and the other to give it meat. (Personally, I don’t think the scene is any less daft than Daniel Craig’s cameo at the Olympics, Queen in tow. Indeed, the film’s silliest moment came from the production team, who chose to insert a still of Margaret Thatcher, celebrating the deeds of her nation’s favourite agent. No, this wasn’t The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, but it was a strong step forward both for the series and for the actor in question, who threw out fewer one-liners. ![]() Better still, Eyes boasts Moore’s most thoughtful portrayal as Bond, capturing a vulnerability his 1970s features prohibited him from showing. Like Fleming before them, Glen and Moore walk a thin line between moral decay and jingoistic, celebratory overindulgence, curating a drama that’s high on intrigue, without sacrificing the interpolations that had merited the series as escapism par excellence. With For Your Eyes Only, director John Glen and star Roger Moore crash-land back down to earth, in a film that is grittier, and certainly more soulful, to the Lewis Gilbert features that had entertained so many for so long. As it happens, Moore recognised the value of the work, and gravitated towards the film’s darker, albeit more soulful, tone. He was hungry for adventure, lumbered with a star who by 1981 was beginning to show signs of detachment to the role. John Glen had worked on Majesty’s as an editor, and clearly the film left a lasting impact on him, as it was a baseline he would return to with For Your Eyes Only and Licence To Kill, his two strongest efforts. Out of the three men who played Bond, only George Lazenby had tackled it with a modicum of integrity in the genuinely heartfelt On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, exhibiting the importance of character development in the field of espionage. In one entry, Bond went underwater by the next film, he was planning an entry to space. Whether it was Sean Connery or Roger Moore in the tux, the series had become a revolving door of martinis, mirth and innuendo, delving between brilliant and balderdash in equal measure. By 1979, the James Bond had become cliché. ![]()
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