As a lifelong Bond enthusiast, I saw this film at the cinema when it came out and so judged it from a contemporary view and again on a recent re-watching. It contains a few of the things that make a good Bond film and a lot more that make the weaker British films of the 70's/80's. Unfortunately, this gives the finished result a very unsatisfying tone.
The cast are fine in doing well what they're given to do. I wish Edward Fox wasn't given M to play as shouting and hollering at his most successful agent, as if cantankerousness alone indicates a high standard of leader. The music drags the mood down and that's an error of commissioning a composer, not of the composer.
The computer game sequence is a lame attempt to put the then-phenomenon of computer graphics into a serious context. But the audience isn't playing the game so they can't feel the player's drama. The list of such defects is too long.
I wanted this to be just a satisfactory film if it couldn't be a good film. A lot of Bond films are flawed, particularly Moore's of that era, so there's a lot of give and take available. This just need to take too much suspension of belief for me, not in the story but in the film- making. If you get a different experience from watching it, that's great but I don't expect you to.
The cast are fine in doing well what they're given to do. I wish Edward Fox wasn't given M to play as shouting and hollering at his most successful agent, as if cantankerousness alone indicates a high standard of leader. The music drags the mood down and that's an error of commissioning a composer, not of the composer.
The computer game sequence is a lame attempt to put the then-phenomenon of computer graphics into a serious context. But the audience isn't playing the game so they can't feel the player's drama. The list of such defects is too long.
I wanted this to be just a satisfactory film if it couldn't be a good film. A lot of Bond films are flawed, particularly Moore's of that era, so there's a lot of give and take available. This just need to take too much suspension of belief for me, not in the story but in the film- making. If you get a different experience from watching it, that's great but I don't expect you to.