Review of For Your Eyes Only (1981) by Xgary X — 21 Oct 2012

When a British spy ship is sunk off the Albanian coast, James Bond is dispatched to recover a top secret signalling device before a notorious criminal kingpin can sell it to the Russians. John Glen's attempt to make a more serious Bond film suffers for several reasons; the opening sequence is surely the least exciting in the entire series, the horribly dated funked-up disco version of the Bond theme plagues the soundtrack throughout and the sets are as poor and unconvincing as the stunt mannequins.

Not to mention the visual effects which consist of the so called "identograph" which is one step up from a Mr. Potato Head, the ATAC looks like an 80s cash register and the Lotus, which looks like a white plastic door stop, is a far cry from Connery's iconic Aston Martin.

But by far the worst aspect of the film is the same as that of the entire Roger Moore run. Roger Moore. He was never exactly adept at action and here he is seriously starting to show his age, particularly when the wheezing, pink faced old geezer who dresses like my dad is hit upon by a whiny teenager in a couple of scenes that are absurd bordering on the grotesque.

It is rather more adult than the surrounding efforts, but that's only compared to the ludicrous excesses of Moonraker and A View To A Kill; the 2CV chase in particular is still like something out of Herbie Goes Bananas and the action-free finale is a severe anti-climax.

On the plus side, the underwater scenes are attractively shot, there's some nice Mediterranean scenery and Topol is on hand to fill the charisma vacuum but he's not in it enough to save the film from total mediocrity.

With neither the requisite spectacular set pieces nor tongue in cheek humour, For Your Eyes Only is just dated and dull.