When a spy story -- even one given to moments of camp and essential silliness -- begins with the promise of something big but never quite takes off, it makes one wonder if maybe it would be time to change the premise, change to a better director, and/or get writer or writers who could construct a solid, pared-down movie with a genuine sense of danger and discard some of the less interesting elements.
This is not saying that FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is a bad film -- spy movies that imitate the Bond style have been made recently with ridiculous levels of awfulness -- but coming out in the times of directors bent on super-productions and blockbusters as well as some choices in production (substituting John Barry for an awful, late 70s Euro-rock score reminiscent of the one heard in LUCIO FULCI'S THE BEYOND), it feels lacking in atmosphere and at least to my opinion, I felt I'd seen it all before.
The girl who has her parents killed and decides to revenge their deaths, check. The chase sequences, of course, standard fare, nothing spectacular or nail-biting. The Russians (or any dark, sinister force/country/covert agency) who want access to a secret code which has the ability to control underwater missiles, check. An impenetrable fortress atop a gigantic mountain/boulder/what-have-you, you betcha. A possible second love interest for Bond, another check. The only thing that is sorely lacking is a memorable villain, and in trying to humanize the bad guys, the creators have come up with people who aren't very interesting, or even ingenious. Julian Glover seems quite grey whenever he's on screen it almost makes me wish the writers hadn't disposed of Ernst Stavros Blofeld, or brought someone similar.
And at over 120 minutes, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY runs a tad too long and doesn't maintain a level of mounting suspense necessary for this kind of movie, so when the end comes, it's a little more than a relief, not because this was a bad feature -- again, it wasn't -- but the fact that this ordeal was so perfunctory. And partly to this are the performances, which are wooden to say the least -- Carol Bouquet, while playing a tough girl, emotes little; Roger Moore repeats playing suave and his age is showing here; Lynn Holly-Johnson is irritating to no avail and her part could have been excised, but in a small role as a secondary Bond girl, Cassandra Harris brings an elegant presence in her brief moment of screen time. She should have had the larger part, since she does smolder, but oh well -- I'm complaining and the movie is a quarter of a century old and a classic. Just not a memorable one.
This is not saying that FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is a bad film -- spy movies that imitate the Bond style have been made recently with ridiculous levels of awfulness -- but coming out in the times of directors bent on super-productions and blockbusters as well as some choices in production (substituting John Barry for an awful, late 70s Euro-rock score reminiscent of the one heard in LUCIO FULCI'S THE BEYOND), it feels lacking in atmosphere and at least to my opinion, I felt I'd seen it all before.
The girl who has her parents killed and decides to revenge their deaths, check. The chase sequences, of course, standard fare, nothing spectacular or nail-biting. The Russians (or any dark, sinister force/country/covert agency) who want access to a secret code which has the ability to control underwater missiles, check. An impenetrable fortress atop a gigantic mountain/boulder/what-have-you, you betcha. A possible second love interest for Bond, another check. The only thing that is sorely lacking is a memorable villain, and in trying to humanize the bad guys, the creators have come up with people who aren't very interesting, or even ingenious. Julian Glover seems quite grey whenever he's on screen it almost makes me wish the writers hadn't disposed of Ernst Stavros Blofeld, or brought someone similar.
And at over 120 minutes, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY runs a tad too long and doesn't maintain a level of mounting suspense necessary for this kind of movie, so when the end comes, it's a little more than a relief, not because this was a bad feature -- again, it wasn't -- but the fact that this ordeal was so perfunctory. And partly to this are the performances, which are wooden to say the least -- Carol Bouquet, while playing a tough girl, emotes little; Roger Moore repeats playing suave and his age is showing here; Lynn Holly-Johnson is irritating to no avail and her part could have been excised, but in a small role as a secondary Bond girl, Cassandra Harris brings an elegant presence in her brief moment of screen time. She should have had the larger part, since she does smolder, but oh well -- I'm complaining and the movie is a quarter of a century old and a classic. Just not a memorable one.