A View to a Kill (1985)
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James Bond must stop a psychopathic industrialist from destroying California's Silicon Valley to secure a monopoly on microchips.
The story
MI6 agent James Bond is dispatched to Siberia to recover a Soviet microchip, which leads him to the discovery of a plot by industrialist Max Zorin. Zorin, who has recently gone rogue from the KGB, intends to destroy Silicon Valley to establish a monopoly on microchip manufacturing. Bond's investigation takes him from the horse tracks of France to the streets of San Francisco. Along the way, he must navigate a web of international intrigue involving the KGB and a conspiracy to manipulate the local economy. Bond teams up with a local woman to uncover Zorin's true motives before his destructive plan can be executed.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
After recovering a Soviet microchip in Siberia, Bond identifies it as a product of Zorin Industries. He travels to France, where he meets Sir Godfrey Tibbett and later encounters the villainous Max Zorin. Zorin, a former KGB protégé, plans to destroy Silicon Valley to monopolize the microchip market. Bond travels to San Francisco, where he teams up with Stacey Sutton to investigate Zorin's activities. They discover Zorin's plan to detonate explosives along the Hayward and San Andreas faults. After a series of confrontations involving KGB agents and Zorin's henchmen, Bond and Sutton infiltrate Zorin's mine. During a final confrontation on the Golden Gate Bridge, Zorin's airship is caught in the bridge's cables. In the ensuing fight, Zorin falls to his death, and the airship explodes, killing his remaining associates. Bond is later awarded the Order of Lenin for foiling the plot.
- First release year
- 1985
- Runtime (minutes)
- 131
- Production countries
- United Kingdom; United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- John Glen
- Writers
- Richard Maibaum · screenplay; Michael G. Wilson · screenplay
- Cast and characters
- Roger Moore · James Bond; Tanya Roberts · Stacey Sutton; Grace Jones · May Day; Patrick Macnee · Sir Godfrey Tibbett; Christopher Walken · Max Zorin; Patrick Bauchau · Scarpine; Willoughby Gray · Dr. Karl Mortner; David Yip · Chuck Lee
- Genres
- spy film; action thriller; adventure
- Themes
- espionage; corporate monopoly; technological warfare
- Tone and mood
- action-packed; tense
- Premise and plot tags
- spy thriller; technological conspiracy; action adventure
- Source material / true-story basis
- Ian Fleming's 1960 short story 'From a View to a Kill'
- Franchise connections
- James Bond
- Reception
- The film was a commercial success but received mostly negative reviews from critics, who criticized the aging performance of Roger Moore.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 36% · scale: percentage · review count: 61; Metacritic · score: 40% · scale: percentage · review count: 20
- Awards and nominations
- Golden Globe · Best Song · nomination
- Production trivia
- The Duran Duran theme song was the only Bond theme to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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