For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Today, for my James Bond marathon, we've reached official film #12: For Your Eyes Only (1981).

SYNOPSIS:
A British spy ship with an Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) sinks in the ocean.  The English hire Sir Timothy Havelock (Jack Hedley) to recover the classified device from the sunken wreck before the Russians do.  But before he can, he and his wife are gunned down.  James Bond (Roger Moore) is sent to investigate, but the murderer is himself murdered by Havelock's daughter, Melina (Carole Bouquet), a Greek lady who swore vengeance for the murder of her parents.  Bond promises her that he will track down who hired the hitman and the two of them race to recover the ATAC before anyone else and keep it out of Russian hands.

REVIEW:
The ongoing legal battles with Kevin McClory, the guy who held the rights to the Thunderball (1965) script and all associated characters and stories, were getting a bit too much for EON Productions.  They had ceased any Ernst Stavro Blofeld or SPECTRE storylines for a decade by now.  So they decided to wrap up the storyline with Blofeld once and for all.

This film opened with James Bond placing flowers on his wife's grave.  As you may remember from my On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) review, Tracy Bond was gunned down by Blofeld and his henchwoman just hours after their wedding.  James Bond then receives a message from a priest that his company is sending a helicopter to pick him up.  But it's a trap!  The helicopter is remote-controlled by an anonymous bald man with a white persian cat on his lap, sitting in a wheelchair.

That quote always makes me cry! :(

As you may remember, the last time we saw Blofeld, he was in a one-man escape pod trying to run from his exploding oil rig in Diamonds Are Forever (1971).  But the escape pod was still attached to a crane and Bond was controlling the crane, bashing the pod against the wall of a building.  Hence why Blofeld is in a neck brace and wheelchair in this film.

Bond desperately clinging to a remote-controlled helicopter while Blofeld mocks him

Bond manages to take control of the helicopter and chases down the bald man, snagging his wheelchair with the landing gear and lifting him up in the air.  The panicked man starts screaming for Mr. Bond to put him down.  "Oh, you want to get off?" Bond asks as he tips forward and drops him down a large smokestack.  And that's the last of Blofeld.

Blofeld begging for his life, moments before being dropped down a smokestack

The rest of the film focused on the plot in the synopsis above.  And personally, I thought it was kind of boring.  Melina was a different type of woman, being out for revenge the entire film.  We saw a woman like that in Goldfinger, but her role was very small and limited.  James Bond has to spend this whole film telling Melina to stay put and stop interfering with his investigation.  He tells her that when you set out for revenge, you must first dig two graves.  Melina is undeterred, and after killing her parents' killer, she sets out to also kill the person who hired the killer.

The eyes of revenge

General Gogol (Walter Gotell), the head of the Russian Intelligence Service, makes another appearance in this film.  He'll be a regular for 5 films, starting from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), two films ago.  Despite being the head of Russian intelligence throughout the Cold War, General Gogol is never played as a villain.  He's more of a competing rival than anything.  In this film, he's attempting to get his hands on the ATAC before the British can recover it.  But he's not the antagonist of the film; the ones trying to recover it and sell it to Gogol are.

I'll beat you next time, Bond!

This film also introduces a young girl by the name of Bibi Dahl (Lynn-Holly Johnson), who is training to be an Olympic ice skater.  She immediately develops a crush on James Bond and he finds himself tactfully declining her advances.  She's very forward with him, too.  Bond finds his hotel room broken into, and when he goes to investigate, he comes across Bibi, fresh out of the shower, crawling naked into bed.  Bond deflects her adult advances by treating her like a child; telling her to get dressed and he'll go get her an ice cream.

Bibi crushing on Bond from the moment she saw him

I don't know how old Bibi's supposed to be in this film (she acts really young and immature), but the actress was 23 when it was released.  I remember having a little crush on her when I first saw this film and I couldn't understand why Bond would turn her down.  But then again, I was about 12 years old when I first saw this film.  Watching again as an adult, I realize that Bond is way too old for her.  Besides, when she's not flirting with him, she's being a whiny brat to her uncle and her Olympic trainer.  She's more annoying than anything.

This film attempted to get away from gadgets, instead relying more on Bond's skills and ingenuity.  Q-Branch makes a brief appearance, where Q (Desmond Llewelyn) issues Bond a new red 1980 Lotus Esprit S3 Turbo.  His former white Lotus Esprit exploded at the beginning when a henchman tried to break the windows, forcing Bond to come up with another solution for escape.  Not the best security measures for a vehicle, if you ask me.

Sleek and sexy!

The novel that this film gets its title from is Ian Fleming's 8th James Bond novel, and a collection of short stories.  One of which is also called For Your Eyes Only, where James Bond avenges the murder of some of M's closest friends.  Vaguely related to this film, where Sir Timothy Havelock was actually working for M when he and his wife were assassinated.

The music in this film starts to take on qualities from the '80s, with just the slightest hint of synth wave backing up the soundtrack.  The self-titled theme song, like the previous few, is rather bland and boring.  It's very soft like a lullaby; again, not really fitting for a James Bond theme in my opinion.  Here's the theme song for you to judge yourself:

RECOMMENDATION:
This film had some decent elements, but overall, I found it kind of dull.  It's one of the few I have a hard time remembering, and even when I recall the plot, the details are still fuzzy.  It was not a game-changer for the world of James Bond, besides killing off Blofeld at the beginning.