For Your Eyes Only (1981)

For Your Eyes Only is one of my favorite James Bond films. It and the Spy Who Loved me constantly via for the top spot in my mind. Sadly, this one did not perform as well as other Roger Moore James Bond movies as it did not do nearly as well as the previous film, Moonraker. I enjoyed this one more than Moonraker, which I did enjoy, but I felt it was a bit of a retread of The Spy Who Loved Me, while this one went in another direction by not having an eccentric wealthy person wishing to establish a new world order. At the same time, this one features action sequence after action sequence and location after location which made this one a fun romp. Perhaps it is the fact that this was not t he only Bond film released this particular year as Never Say Never Again featuring Sean Connery was put out the same year so it may have turned people off to see both. Me, I never cared to Never Say Never as it is simply a remake of Thunderball which is one of my favorite Sean Connery Bond movies. It and From Russia With Love via for the top spot for the Connery movies. I guess it matters little these days, and why should I care now that I alone think this is one of the best Bond films.

The movie features a lot of action, but the mission is almost a rather unremarkable one. A spy ship is sunken with a mine and a decoder device that is on board is something that the Russians would love to have. The British have a man working on retrieving it, but he is promptly killed along with his wife in front of their daughter. James is sent in to find the hit-man responsible, but he soon finds a lot of people involved which takes him from one exotic location to another as he tracks down the one responsible for the death of the man charged with recovering the coding device. He will team up with the daughter whose parents were killed and soon try to salvage the device themselves; however, there is another who is after the device as well so he can sell it to the Russians.

This one has so many action sequences in it that it goes by at supersonic speed. It opens with an action sequence in a helicopter that is unrelated to the decoding device plot, but it is fun to watch and the only time Blofeld and Roger Moore's Bond cross paths. There is an awesome car chase scene which features a very non typical Bond vehicle, a ski chase, a warehouse raid, a deep sea battle and a fight on a mountain monastery which has an awesome rock climbing scene. The Bond girls here are okay, just not as attractive as say Goodnight from Golden Gun or XXX from Spy. A lot of people complain about Bebe being to young for Roger, but he never shows any interest in her throughout the film so not sure why her character is criticized. She is just there to advance the plot in the Cortina portion of the film and to make Bond squirm a bit. The villain is good too as if you are watching it for the first time, you are not quite sure who the villain is until midway through the movie.

So, no, this Bond is nothing like the previous two Bond movies which were very similar. Heck, it isn't even like Live and Let Die or Man with the Golden Gun either. It is not even like the next two Bond films. It stands on its own and is really fun to watch. I loved this one as a kid as it and Spy were tops for me at a young age too. This one I sometimes place on the top, because Spy is so similar to Moonraker; although, this one was supposed to follow Spy, but thanks to the space craze they decided to put Bond in space instead. I sometimes wonder had Moonraker not been made, if this film would have been vastly different as Jaws could very well had been in this one as he survived Spy and if there is no Moonraker where he turned good he could have showed up here to torment 007. So, while it is not apparently everybody's cup of tea, For Your Eyes Only stands near the top and is one of the more enjoyable and fast paced Bond films there is.