This installment in the Bond franchise begins with 007 in Siberia recovering a silicon chip from 003’s frozen body; of course he then has to escape across the ice on skis, a snowmobile, a makeshift snowboard and finally a boat disguised as a small iceberg! We soon learn that the chip found in Siberia matches that of a government contractor who has recently been acquired by Zorin Industries. Bond is tasked with investigating Zorin; a task which takes him to France where Zorin is holding a horse sale. Bond learns that Zorin is hoarding silicon chips, but at this point he has no idea why. The only real lead he finds there is a check made out to a woman from Stacey Sutton, California for five million dollars. At this point the viewer learns his plans… he plans to destroy Silicon Valley in order to give him and his associates a monopoly on the supply of silicon chips. Bond heads to California, where he discovers that Zorin is pumping seawater into a series of oil wells. At first he is told that this is a routine operation to test the pipes, but when he finds Stacey, she tells him that Zorin has been trying to force her to sell her family’s oil well, and that pumping water into the wells is dangerous because they are on a fault line. It turns out that he plans to flood both the Heywood and San Andreas faults, while also blowing up the site that prevents both from having earthquakes at the same time… Bond and Stacey have a limited time to stop Silicon Valley from flooding and drowning hundreds of thousands of people.

Like other Bond films of the Roger Moore era, this one has a lot of elements that are quite silly; whether that makes it more entertaining or just plain annoying depends on the viewer… one example is the use of the song ‘California Girls’ as Bond ‘surfs’ on a makeshift snowboard in the opening scenes; personally I quite enjoyed it, but I know others would disagree. Christopher Walken, as the psychotic Zorin, was an entertaining, if slightly OTT villain and Grace Jones was good as his Amazonian assistant May Day; although better in the action scenes than when she’s talking! Roger Moore once again gave an enjoyable performance as Bond, although he was starting to get a bit old for the role by now. It wouldn’t be a Bond film without some exciting stunts in impressive locations; these include Bond chasing May Day in a stolen taxi as she parachutes from the Eiffel Tower; Bond fleeing the police in a huge stolen fire engine and finally a battle at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. You could argue that the plot was lifted straight from ‘Goldfinger’; right down to the killing of the ‘investor’ who decides not to continue when he finds out what the bad guy is up to, although that is a fair argument, I don’t think it ruined the film, even if it isn’t on the same level as the previous film. Overall this was a decent final Bond film for Roger Moore, although far from his best; still a fun way to spend a few hours on a rainy afternoon!

James Bond sets out to stop a psychopathic businessman and a successful horse breeder. Starring Roger Moore and Christopher Walken.

Moore was clearly too old for the role, but the film has all the elements of a great Bond film. A great villain in Walken, a dastardly plot, beautiful girls and great locations.

Very nice. Grace Jones is a great sidekick.