Bond Week: Day 5

For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Dir: John Glen

As far as I can tell, For Your Eyes Only seems to be something of a favourite among the diehard Bond fans. I can’t for the life of me figure out why. It’s not that this is an especially bad film; it’s just not a very good one either. It just sits there on the screen, often seeming as tired and old as its Bond (Roger Moore, looking like a wrinkled leather sack at 54). It is perhaps summed up best by its title song, which isn’t the worst Bond song ever (that, surely for all time, is Madonna’s staggeringly terrible Die Another Day) but Sheena Easton’s somnambulant ditty sets you up brilliantly for what is a rather tedious film.

Though, at two hours, For Your Eyes Only is hardly a marathon, or even one of the longer Bonds, but it moves like a snail on valium. It doesn’t help that Julian Glover’s villain makes little impression, and is not even close to being evil enough to be interesting. It’s also a shame that the very talented Carole Bouquet appears, for much of her performance as dull as dishwater Bond Girl Melina, to be very poorly dubbed. The action isn’t bad, but only one scene - Bond hanging perilously off a cliff as some random thug cuts his rope - really gets the blood pumping. Moore does his usual thing as Bond, and is perfectly alright, but he seems a little bored, perhaps tiring of the role, or even realising that he’s getting rather long in the tooth for it.

For Your Eyes Only is a two hour yawn.

Next Up: Casino Royale (2006)