@SaveTheJamesBondFilms said:

Agree. So much better than the tedium of the Craig era.

Couldn't agree more, sir.

I really like this movie. It has Christopher Walken for god sake! And Grace Jones. And the main song is so good.

It was better paced than any of the Moore turns since Live And Let Die imo. Pity that Moore himself didn't look too good in this. I'm not really bothered by his age, but he looked ill. Contemporary reviews put it down to his cosmetic surgery but it seems more than that to me; he looked tragic.

Having said that, there's a lot wrong with this. Sloppy FX, basically par for the course for this era Bond, lazy direction and acting, and people just sleepwalking thru it all. We all know Walken can act, but a New York accent when playing an East German? Talk about not being bothered and cashing the paycheck. Thank God we didn't get another 20 minute speedboat/ ski/ car chase. I don't know in which universe that is anything but a snooze, but it definitely isn't this one.

All the Moore era Bonds were, to use an ugly modern term, really rapey. Again, that isn't about age, grown adults can have sex with whomever they please as long as everyone else is a consenting adult, but there was a persistent predatory aspect to this era Bond that really hasn't held up well.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

All the Moore era Bonds were, to use an ugly modern term, really rapey. Again, that isn't about age, grown adults can have sex with whomever they please as long as everyone else is a consenting adult, but there was a persistent predatory aspect to this era Bond that really hasn't held up well.

Live and Let Die yes. But not really a particularly fair generalisation given For Your Eyes Only.

@The Midi-chlorian Count said:

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

All the Moore era Bonds were, to use an ugly modern term, really rapey. Again, that isn't about age, grown adults can have sex with whomever they please as long as everyone else is a consenting adult, but there was a persistent predatory aspect to this era Bond that really hasn't held up well.

Live and Let Die yes. But not really a particularly fair generalisation given For Your Eyes Only.

To be fair FYEO is not as bad in this regard as others. The 'passing' on Bibi does look somewhat contrived when he still ends up with a no less vulnerable Melina, who has not only seen both her parents murdered but countless others. If a police officer started a sexual relationship with a woman whose parents' murder he was investigating, I think most people would have ethical issues with that. That Bond is undercover doesn't change that dynamic.

I used the term 'rapey' even tho I dislike the term, because it is nonetheless a useful shorthand to describe something that might be perfectly legal , and even acceptable in days gone by, but which doesn't stand up to scrutiny today. While I'm not in the slightest suggesting that the Bond character needs to be a role model- he is after all a professional assassin- the core of the Bond mythos is that us ordinary men might in our daydreams imagine ourselves more like him than we are in reality. Having sex with vulnerable women doesn't belong in that mythos imo. Not today anyway.

As an aside, the reason I dislike the word 'rapey' is that even tho it is a portmanteau of 'rape' and 'creepy' and thus serves to describe something that sits somewhere between the two things, the resultant neologism, altho otherwise a reasonable term, unhappily resembles English constructs that take a diminutive form, and are used in either an affectionate or reductive way. Examples would be things like 'sweetie' or names like 'Bobby'. This undermines the meaning of the new word imo.

@SpaceRanger06 said:

I really like this movie. It has Christopher Walken for god sake! And Grace Jones. And the main song is so good.

I love her. Duran Duran's song is entertaining also.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

To be fair FYEO is not as bad in this regard as others. The 'passing' on Bibi does look somewhat contrived when he still ends up with a no less vulnerable Melina, who has not only seen both her parents murdered but countless others.

Ha ha, that's true enough!

Although I still think the "rapey-ist" thing in Bond (if you could Daniel Craig as truly Bond that is) is when he stealthily sneaks on to that boat and bursts in upon that poor girl in the shower (who even worse than the FYEO's Melina), has, if I remember correctly just told Bond she was a sex slave or suchlike (?) !!

There's a lot to love about this entry in the canon. Hellooooo 1980s!

If it was Timothy Dalton's first film instead of Roger Moore's last it would be considered a classic.