Viewed in
2010
Formats
HDTV
Premise
Roger Moore stars as 007 as he tries to stop Christopher Walken from destroying Silicon Valley.
Liked
Some of the stunts, casting of Walken.
Disliked
Misuse of Walken.
Thoughts
One of the more boring Bonds.
It had a cool skiing opening (the Bond films seem to consistently make creative ski chases). I wonder if it got credit for introducing snowboarding to mass audiences? There was also some entertaining, creative stunts involving fire trucks and blimps over the Golden Gate Bridge of San Fransisco.
On paper, casting Christopher Walken as a sociopath villain was perfect. Even making his sidekick a crazy-looking athletic black lady was cool. Too bad that the execution sucked.
Rarely did he show any hint of danger or instability one would expect from such a character or from Walken. There was nothing memorable about this villain in performance or gimmicks. Since the ambitions of Walken's character was rather small compared to other villains, the movie was forced to meander into random settings and complications before we finally know his motives. Lastly, the plot use earthquakes to destroy Silicon Valley was simply too silly to believe.
The stunts were reliably entertaining, but lack of a good villain, a decent storyline, and cheeky humor made this entry sadly boring.
What I would change
Gave Walken more material to ham it up.
