For Your Eyes Only

After a pre-credits scene with a slightly self-parodic (but funny) ending, it's a typical Moore Bond film again. Bond hooks up with a vengeful girl and they go after throats... Anyone’s throat. The film is funny, the action scenes are very good (the long ski chase, Bond and Melina dragging behind a boat or the climbing scene which is really tense), but the villain is not great. He's good enough, though. The smuggler Columbo gets major points from me, as he could have given charisma to three-quarters of the film crew and still had enough left for himself. The music was composed by Bill Conti instead of John Barry, and that was not a good choice... But still, four pure stars. P.S. If Q would install the same "security" in my car as in Bond's white lotus.... I'd kill him! (03/13/2010)

I was less satisfied with the writing and Roger Moore this time, although the writers did manage to pack diving, mountaineering, and a wide range of winter sports into one film. That’s all very well but Moore's Bond is supposed to be a witty Bond and if you forget that, it will affect the final result. (08/03/2016)

My dear Moore, you wanted to be an action hero after all at your age? Well, why not? There is a script for it, the plot returns to the ground (literally) after the crazy Moonraker, even deeply into Fleming's history and is played again using simple cards. No super apocalyptic inventions, no super gadgets and super villains, but good old KGB, an erratic underworld and one lost British machine. And he's trying to do it like 007, so a few strange mafia subjects... It's obvious that it's the 1980s. Especially the introduction of the film is as if it fell out of some fallen American detective story so typical of that decade, a terrible casio pop is playing, and the already very breathless Bond Moore is trying to prove that he still has what it takes. Does he? Without the sarcastic catchphrases that the script closed off for him? No way. He even needs a double for running up the stairs, the charm is gone, and his characteristic machismo is replaced by and old man's sex appeal. Fortunately, there is a second half where both the sound and the main character are put back in order, and a surprisingly serious and thrilling plot unfolds for a Moore film with perhaps the best ending a Bond has ever had the pleasure of acting in (the phone call with the Prime Minister). For Your Eyes Only is a wooden spy film that, unlike From Russia with Love, lacks the unifying charisma of the main actor and prepares a few hot moments of nausea for those of us sick of 80s pop culture, but in the end it's good fun with fairly decent action directing by John Glen. Certainly better than Moonraker's galactic trip, but Moore was still the best when he wasn't taken seriously. (11/08/2004)

Humor is taken to the very end here, it's just a pity that Roger Moore is aging quite a bit... After all, he was already approaching sixty, even though he was only 54 when he filmed "For Your Eyes Only". It's quite noticeable how much Moneypenny has aged as well. Lois Maxwell played her from the first film "Dr. No" in 1962. She even lasted through Moore's tenure. Although the film is not lacking in humor, it certainly doesn't lack action and interesting locations. The introduction with Blofeld is not a bad entry at all. Whenever there are skiing scenes in Bond films, it's always worth it. This film is no exception. Excellent water shots only highlight the fact that the viewer's experience was truly well taken care of, and it succeeded in that. (03/08/2014)

Serious, restrained, and down-to-earth, perhaps an attempt to return to the roots, but unsuccessful. Roger Moore is too wooden and uninteresting to play the same game as Sean Connery. The villains are boring and clumsy, the Bond girl is dull and unattractive. Maybe only the finale at the Meteora monasteries was nice, as well as the solidly shot and sound-designed action scenes rich in explosions and overall destruction. Well, it better be for a budget of 28 million dollars! (05/11/2014)