Review of For Your Eyes Only (1981) by Vidyabum — 22 Oct 2021

Having watched 25 Bonds from Dr.No to Skyfall, I place this one at 12/25.

For Your Eyes Only is fairly simple: it's a generic Moore Bond, with a villain whose time onscreen is massively misused, and it has no exceptional qualities in its story, actors, or style.

But I believe that for its time, and perhaps even for much later in the series history, it has the best action of perhaps the whole franchise. There's a sense of real violence in the strikes, the shots, the moments. The ending sadly is quite boring, and there's a bunch of really poorly made scenes, but the overall movie is visually appealing and its action scenes, in the snow and the mountains particularly, are extremely well made. It's the only Bond movie to have 15 minutes of action scenes upon action scenes, and I still didn't feel bored or that it overstayed its welcome.

Otherwise, it's another Moore Bond, not his best, not one of his bad ones. They tried to give it a twist with a friend that turns villain, but he has so little character during his scenes that it's a moot effort. A special mention to Carole Bouquet, who was truly beautiful.