For most/many of us who were born in the 70s and grew up in the 80s and 90s, Roger Moore (and later, Pierce Brosnan) defined 007, but the truth is, Moore and Brosnan together took the film series away from the Fleming universe of gritty realism and in an absurdly campy direction with outlandish plots of world domination, cookie-cutter villains, and the overuse of downright farcical gadgets, until Craig rescued the films...and us.
A close analysis of the films tells us that beginning with The Spy Who Loved Me up to Die Another Day, every film was a subtle remake of one of the classic Bonds of Connery and Lazenby from the 60s (to illustrate: TSWLM, Moonraker, and Tomorrow Never Dies were all remakes of You Only Live Twice, The Living Daylights was From Russia With Love, Octopussy was Goldfinger, and A View To A Kill was Thunderball). By the mid-80s, a sense of ennui had crept in and it had everything to do with the OTT-ness that Broccoli and Saltzman were subjecting the films to, Moore's portrayal of a deadly Spy in the manner of a popular and elderly uncle more likely to crack a risque joke than kill someone in cold blood, and his advancing age. But the realistic and unassuming For Your Eyes Only more than makes up for the big, slightly bloated, money-churning megaliths that TSWLM and Moonraker are.
The story is a punch of two Fleming short stories, 'Risico' and 'For Your Eyes Only' (yes, it's not a full-fledged novel). Tidbits from other novels are thrown in, and the final product is very much like the highly underrated classic, On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Bond siding with a 'good' criminal to take on a 'bad' criminal (Drako/Blofeld in OHMSS vs. Columbo/Kristatos in FYEO). But after two drolly asinine outings to the depths of the oceans and the outer space, FYEO comes as a shot in the arm for Bond purists who love the classic touches of Fleming, whose Secret Agent was more of a cold-blooded killer than a wining, dining, smooth-talking Casanova, and the best examples of this in all of Moore's films come in FYEO, when (a) Bond goes to his late wife Teresa's grave to pay his respects and later (b) he kicks Locque's car from the top of a hill and sends it crashing. There's a latent sense of danger running through the narrative and the story is more localised and, knowing 007's history, more personal w/o being outside the purview of governmental action, something that a solo-flying Intelligence Agent would find himself entangled in rather than trying to stop cartoonish villains from taking over the world. As M would say, "Well done, 007."
A close analysis of the films tells us that beginning with The Spy Who Loved Me up to Die Another Day, every film was a subtle remake of one of the classic Bonds of Connery and Lazenby from the 60s (to illustrate: TSWLM, Moonraker, and Tomorrow Never Dies were all remakes of You Only Live Twice, The Living Daylights was From Russia With Love, Octopussy was Goldfinger, and A View To A Kill was Thunderball). By the mid-80s, a sense of ennui had crept in and it had everything to do with the OTT-ness that Broccoli and Saltzman were subjecting the films to, Moore's portrayal of a deadly Spy in the manner of a popular and elderly uncle more likely to crack a risque joke than kill someone in cold blood, and his advancing age. But the realistic and unassuming For Your Eyes Only more than makes up for the big, slightly bloated, money-churning megaliths that TSWLM and Moonraker are.
[Image courtesy: Google Images]
The story is a punch of two Fleming short stories, 'Risico' and 'For Your Eyes Only' (yes, it's not a full-fledged novel). Tidbits from other novels are thrown in, and the final product is very much like the highly underrated classic, On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Bond siding with a 'good' criminal to take on a 'bad' criminal (Drako/Blofeld in OHMSS vs. Columbo/Kristatos in FYEO). But after two drolly asinine outings to the depths of the oceans and the outer space, FYEO comes as a shot in the arm for Bond purists who love the classic touches of Fleming, whose Secret Agent was more of a cold-blooded killer than a wining, dining, smooth-talking Casanova, and the best examples of this in all of Moore's films come in FYEO, when (a) Bond goes to his late wife Teresa's grave to pay his respects and later (b) he kicks Locque's car from the top of a hill and sends it crashing. There's a latent sense of danger running through the narrative and the story is more localised and, knowing 007's history, more personal w/o being outside the purview of governmental action, something that a solo-flying Intelligence Agent would find himself entangled in rather than trying to stop cartoonish villains from taking over the world. As M would say, "Well done, 007."
