007 Journals: For Your Eyes Only

Well this is a movie that I have been struggling with. Moonraker very quickly killed my momentum with these films and with Roger Moore. At this point Roger Moore is just getting older and older (because that's how life works) but it just keeps showing more and more. Honestly it does kind of feel like we are just getting to Bond toward the end of his career. At this point there have been so many movies and we have seen the character evolve. We once again get references to him being married previously with the cold open starting at his dead wife's grave. So maybe it makes sense to keep going with Roger Moore but honestly I feel like the Dalton films should have been a reboot. Even the Brosnan movies could be considered a reboot because we get no mention of Bond's past or his dead wife at that point. I guess that's something to address when we get there though. For now though we focus on Roger Moore's fifth outing as Bond.

Honestly I've been thinking about this movie since I finished it and I feel really conflicted about this one. Moonraker was a really bad James Bond film. Maybe even just a bad film in general. This was actually supposed to be the next Bond film after The Spy Who Loved Me but because of the success of Star Wars we got Moonraker instead. Well Moonraker was of course a financial success but was not well received by critics so the humor and silliness of the series was toned down for this film. At least that's what they claimed but this film still had a lot of jokey moments that brought it down for me. Honestly the whole opening with a faceless Blofeld (who we haven't seen since Diamonds Are Forever) was only saved by the great helicopter stunt. Other than that it seemed rather pointless o bring the character back at all. I honestly thought he was dead after Diamonds Are Forever and I was happy with that. I guess, due to the lawsuit with McClory, Albert Broccoli decided to officially kill off Blofeld early on to prove that the series didn't need Blofeld to be successful but I feel like this could have been accomplished by ignoring the character completely.

So the idea for this movie was to make it feel more grounded in reality. The template was to look at previous successful films such as From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. This shows mostly in the way that the plot is a direct copy of From Russia With Love. It all revolves around two different sides from the Cold War trying to get a device involved with deciphering codes. While the film rips off the plot of one of my favorite (so far) Bond films it just doesn't pull it off anywhere near as well. Almost this entire movie really feels like "been there, done that" and because of that I really just felt bored most of the time. Even a lot of the action scenes feel repeated. This is at least the fifth time I feel like I've seen Bond on skis. This isn't a bad film by any means but I definitely feel like I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't watching in a marathon. So saying that I will state that this review reflects my current viewing and that I could come to like this movie a lot more in the future but currently it just seemed like another cookie cutter Bond movie. None of the villains were memorable but what was memorable was the fact that they got the upper hand on Bond numerous times which fits into my point of view of this being an older Bond. He's just not on top of his game anymore.

While most of the bad guys were forgettable there were actually some great characters in this movie. Columbo is an amazingly fun character in the vein of Kerim Bey. Melina is  serviceable Bond girl and I couldn't get over how much she looked like Liv Tyler but her acting was kind of flat. I will say due to HD there is a moment where you get to see her butt when they get pulled away underwater. Score. Q also had an expanded role in the film, basically taking place for M's absence as Bernard Lee was very ill at the time and died shortly after. While I did miss M I did love having more Q this time. Even though I loved some characters I have to point how pointless the character of Bibi was. She contributed nothing to this movie and her acting was so painfully bad. She had no reason to be in this movie. The faceless Blofeld stand in honestly did a better job than her. Even when she's present at the end fight and has the chance to be a damsel in distress she isn't even utilized for this reason. Just a pointless character.

This film wasn't all bad. There were some decent action scenes though some were hindered by the older Roger Moore. A lot of great stunt work which just always looks so good in these older movies with actual actors vs the modern CGI that would be used today. The plot is good because it's based on another great Bond plot, but that is it's true failing because we have seen it before. While it wasn't as good as From Russia With Love it is a serviceable plot and much better than the previous Moonraker plot. Honestly everything about this is better than Moonraker so that's a plus. My biggest gripe with the movie is just how bored I felt so for my ranking I'm going to give it a two out of five but I definitely want to come back to this movie after I get some distance from the series because I feel like in a bubble I might enjoy it a lot more.