For Your Eyes Only (1981)

There’s a recurring gag in Monty Python skits where Graham Chapman interrupts as “The Colonel,” who always intercedes when he feels that the skit has become “far too silly.”  While there’s no Chapman cameo in For Your Eyes Only, one gets the feeling that The Colonel’s refrain was bandied about in the wake of Moonraker, resulting in a Bond film that takes itself much more seriously, even if the end product is somewhat forgettable.

After the pre-credits disposal of a villain who for legal reasons (and in spite of the Nehru suit, traction collar, and white cat) can’t be named Blofeld, James Bond (Roger Moore) travels across Eastern Europe to Greece in order to locate a missing MacGuffin – here, it’s a missile guidance control system or whatnot.  Bond becomes entangled in a smuggling rivalry between Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover) and Milos Columbo (Topol), each of whom claims the other is Bond’s target; at the same time, Bond allies himself with Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet), out to avenge the death of her parents.

By way of opening remarks, let me applaud the filmmakers – particularly director John Glen, on his first outing as a director – for moving Bond in a more serious direction.  For the past few months, I’ve contended that there is a solid James Bond lurking somewhere inside Roger Moore, but it’s often buried beneath bland chicanery and an overdose of camp.  We get to see some of that “solid Bond” come out in For Your Eyes Only, but at the same time it seems that much of the Bond humor has been stripped away from this one.  There are numerous moments begging for a Bond quip, deaths of henchmen that go unremarked.  (Later, we’ll see Daniel Craig find a nice middle ground with his dry sardonic black humor.)

So while this Bond is a conscious refutation of its campy precursors, that distancing comes at the cost of the overall Bond vibe; For Your Eyes Only feels like James Bond has been dropped into a different film franchise altogether, in which he’s playing a kind of guest role.  I’m not saying Bond doesn’t get enough screen time; he’s omnipresent as always, but he seems like a silent observer to a lot of the film, even taking a backseat at times to Melina Havelock’s revenge plot.  It’s a good thing Carole Bouquet holds her own in the film, proving capable in action sequences and in close-ups of simmering vengeance.  The chemistry, though, is never really there; she and Bond feel perpetually in each other’s way until they end up in bed together.

The honest truth?  That’s about all I remember from this movie.  As someone who prides himself on a particularly strong memory, For Your Eyes Only is like a complete blur for me, even after only a few days.  While the idea of a more serious Bond is a fantastic one, the execution on this is just passable; the film meets the bare minimum standard for gravitas by stripping away the fun but without replacing it with something compelling.  The bait and switch with the villain is a real eye-roller; Bond simply takes the word of the second “suspect” that the first is the real baddie, who admits with what amounts to a casual shrug, a “Yeah, you got me,” and a perfunctory mustache twirl.  And (spoilers) Julian Glover is terribly disappointing as Kristatos; where his Nazi sympathizer Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was memorably sinister, here his chief act of villainy seems to be his relentless pursuit of a sexual liaison with an underage figure skater.

James Bond deserves better.  Heck, this film deserves better than to fade into the foggy recesses of my mind.  There’s enough that could have worked had the movie been... well, had the movie been a different movie altogether.  But in spite of it all, For Your Eyes Only is not offensively bad, which is more than I can say for Moonraker.  Moonraker was at least an unwatchable train wreck that descended into madcap incredulity with whiplash-inducing speed before our very eyes; For Your Eyes Only merely plods forward until it ends, bizarrely enough, with a Margaret Thatcher caricature.  It’s a step in the right direction, but darned if I can’t remember which direction it is.

For Your Eyes Only is rated PG.  Aside from the standard seductions, one woman very nearly exposes too much décolletage, while another wears a transparent white top and (in another scene) exposes her buttocks.  A few men are injured in aquatic scenes, with blood floating in the water; several other deaths occur, mostly off-screen and/or bloodlessly.

James Bond and The Cinema King will return – in the New Year – in a review of Octopussy (1983) on January 7, 2014!  (Heads-up:  like Moonraker, I’ve never actually been able to finish Octopussy.  We’re in trouble.)