Bovie Movie

Secret Agent 007 must stop a megalomaniacal technology mogul from destroying Silicon Valley in this unexceptional entry in the James Bond series. Computer baron Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) is planning to trigger a major California earthquake in order to wipe out his competitors. Bond is assigned to stop him, but first he must do battle with Zorin’s statuesque partner in crime, May Day (Grace Jones). The expected high-wire confrontations ensue, as Bond battles the villains at international landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and takes the occasional break to romance an attractive geologist. Unfortunately, nothing fresh is brought to the familiar formula, and even the well-staged action sequences prove less than exciting. Indeed, this otherwise by-the-numbers production is most notable for the fact that it marked the final appearance of Roger Moore as the dashing Bond.

This (13th) time around, “007″ receives the usual call to come and visit “Mother” when another agent drops off a fake Faberge jeweled egg at the British embassy in East Berlin and is later killed at a traveling circus. Suspicions mount when the assistant manager of the circus Kamal (Louis Jourdan), outbids Bond for the real Faberge piece at Sotheby’s. Bond follows Kamal to India where the superspy thwarts many an ingenious attack and encounters the antiheroine of the title (Maud Adams), an international smuggler who runs the circus as a cover for her illegal operations. It does not take long to figure out that Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a decidedly rank Russian general is planning to raise enough money with the fake Faberges to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO forces once and for all in conventional warfare.

Timothy Dalton is better in Licence to Kill than in his first James Bond endeavor (The Living Daylights), but he still seems uncomfortable on the right side of the law. This time around, Bond is working on his own rather than on behalf of the British Secret Service. His American friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison), an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, has been seriously injured by drug dealer Robert Davi, and 007 is out for blood. There is precious little time for the usual Bondian quippery and directorial campiness, resulting in a marked increase in bloodletting (including the “implosion” of secondary villain Anthony Zerbe). A climactic highway chase involving an oil tanker and a helicopter is stretched slightly beyond its value, but is still one of the best action setpieces in any Bond film. Licence to Kill was a refreshingly serious change of pace for the series, albeit one that tended to lessen Bond’s box-office value.

James Bond heads East to save the world (and to learn how to serve saki properly) in this action-packed espionage adventure. When an American spacecraft disappears during a mission, it’s widely believed to have been intercepted by the Soviet Union, and after a Russian space capsule similarly goes missing, most consider it to be an act of American retaliation. Soon the two nations are at the brink of war, but British intelligence discovers that some sort of UFO has crashed into the Sea of Japan. Agent 007, James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent in to investigate. After staging his own death to avoid being followed, Bond, disguised as a Japanese civilian, teams up with agent Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba) and his beautiful associate Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi). With their help, Bond learns that both the American and Russian space missions were actually scuttled by supercriminal Ernst Blofeld (Donald Pleasance) in yet another bid by his evil empire SPECTRE to take over the world. As he battles the bad guys, Bond finds time to romance both Kissy Suziki (Mie Hama) and Helga Brandt (Karin Dor). You Only Live Twice was one of Sean Connery’s last outings as James Bond. The next Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, would star George Lazenby as 007, and while Connery would return for Diamonds Are Forever, in 1973, Roger Moore took over the role. (Connery would play Bond one last time, in 1983’s Never Say Never Again, which was produced outside the official series.)

Roger Moore makes his first appearance as “Bond…James Bond” in 1973’s Live and Let Die. Bond is dispatched to the States to stem the activities of Mr. Big (Yaphet Kotto), who plans to take over the Western Hemisphere by converting everyone into heroin addicts. The woman in the case is Solitaire (Jane Seymour in her movie debut), an enigmatic interpreter of tarot cards. The obligatory destructive-chase sequence occurs at the film’s midpoint, with Bond being chased in a motorboat by Mr. Big’s henchmen, slashing his way through the marshlands and smashing up a wedding party. Clifton James makes the first of several Bond appearances as redneck sheriff Pepper, while Geoffrey Holder is an enthusiastic secondary villain. The title song, written by Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney, provides the frosting on this 007 confection.