For Your Eyes Only

For Your Eyes Only; action, UK, 1981; D: John Glen, S: Roger Moore, Carol Bouquet, Chaim Topol, Julian Glover

Somewhere in the south Adriatic sea, a British spy ship collided with a mine and sunk. It contains ATAC, a system that could order submarines to fire at their own cities. Timothy Havelock is killed by pilot Gonzales from a helicopter that was about to retrieve ATAC from the sea. His daughter Melina wants to take revenge on the people responsible for it. James Bond stumbles upon Gonzales, but the latter is killed by Melina. They both flee to the Italian peninsula, and then to a Greek town where they discover that the villain Kristatos wants to sell ATAC to the Soviets. In an ambush, Bond retrieves ATAC and destroys it, whereas Kristatos dies. For his vacation, Bond brings Melina with him.

With the action thriller "For Your Eyes Only", director John Glen managed to conjure up a truly good James Bond film and thus saved the movie series, whereas even Roger Moore's performance is much more dignified in this edition. Bond is basically a long spy soap opera, so Glen chose wisely when he decided to craft it as an unpretentious fun full of attractions. There are comical scenes, such as when a computer makes a phantom image of a villain with a nose as big a Pinocchio's or a burglar who wants to break into Bond's car despite the warning, so the vehicle explodes with him in self-defence. Even the action is top-notch: downhill car chases are equally as spectacular as the pursuit of Bond on skis. Despite the fact that the ending is slightly confusing and illogical, this 12th Bond film is a very polished and satisfactory edition.

Grade:++