thomas-williamson-ga Review of For Your Eyes Only

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

it lacks here and there yet still entertains

[7/10 · 25 March 2011]

Oh where to begin with this one... Guess I should start with letting people know that while I almost never include spoilers for the courtesy of others, I really feel the need to make an exception with For Your Eyes Only. On a positive note, the spoilers I will give are few and will not ruin the viewer's experience. For those who read my previous Bond review I stated that Never Say Never roughly takes place in between Moonraker and Your Eyes Only. As a number of you know, For Your Eyes Only came out a year before Never Say Never. This is where the first spoiler comes in: In Never Say Never, we see the return of Blofeld who headed the Spectre criminal organization thought to have been killed off in Diamonds Are Forever. In Your Eyes Only, Bond finally finishes off Blofeld near the start of the film. Despite Never Say Never being an unofficial 'EON' release and a loose yet much improved remake of Thunderball, For Your Eyes Only should have come out in between Never Say Never and Octopussy as far as I'm concerned. NOW BACK TO THE INITIAL REVIEW: For Your Eyes Only delivers most of what 007 fans have come to enjoy regarding a super spy action flick. Still, having come out after Moonraker I can see how some viewers might have found this movie to be a bit of a letdown. The previous Roger Moore bond films had reached a good peak for the series at the time with supposed future technology and special effects. Your Eyes Only somewhat clumped a rehash of previous action/effect sequences used in previous 007 films going as far back to Her Majesty's Secret Service. Normally this is fine and has worked even for some of the later Bonds to come yet in this particular instance, it seems overdone and cliché. Just watch and you will see what I'm talking about. As for the villain of this 007 title, he is very mundane and uninteresting as was the villain Largo from Thunderball (Ironically, the Largo character in Never Say Never was quite improved upon). Mind you, none of the critiques above should discourage anyone from watching this movie. In fact, the bond woman in this is one of my favorites. This is because her character is not the predictable damsel in distress as we have seen in many 007 films. She is independent, a trained fighter, intelligent, and very good looking. As for the music, the theme song to Your Eyes Only is one of the tunes that stand out to me from the bond series. The other tunes I liked were from Goldfinger, Live Let Die, Man with Golden Gun, and Spy Who Loved Me. On a final note, this movie is worth viewing though I will strongly suggest watching it after Never Say Never and also watching it before Octopussy even though nothing connects it to the latter bond title. While some readers will disagree with me on this review and quite possibly Never Say Never, hopefully all readers will have found my reviews informative.