Secret service agent James Bond is assigned to find a missing British vessel equipped with a weapons encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
For Your Eyes Only Ratings & Reviews
- jussirasJune 29, 2025Bad cuts, dodgy plot, weird opening scene unrelated to the movie
- Mister ArnMay 23, 2025The first 15 minutes are worth watching; after that, you need to love James Bond films.
- ርልዪረJanuary 28, 2025( -_•)︻デ═一 For Your Eyes Only, the twelfth film of the James Bond franchise and Roger Moore’s fifth portraying the titular MI6 agent racing to find a missile command system while getting entangled between rival Greek underworld figures and a young woman looking to avenge her parents. John Glen made his directorial debut with this film using the screenplay written by Richard Maibum and Michael G. Wilson, basing it on two Ian Fleming short stories, one of which shares the film’s title. With a runtime of almost 130 minutes, For Your Eyes Only is a call back to the gritty, realistic films of the early Connery era. Roger Moore seemed both to embrace and be intimidated by the gritty realism of this film making his performance not his best, but not his worst either though Moore’s age in comparison with his female costars was very telling. Julian Glover’s Aristotle Kristatos was a believable underworld villain, looking to play both sides for profit for both now while being a creepy middle-age man interested in a teenage figure skater—though it didn’t make things favorable towards the film’s main relationship. French actress Carole Bouquet portrayal of Melina Havelock is one of the better Bond girls in the franchise, the fact that she was out for revenge on her own gave the character more depth and was never a damsel-in-distress in the film was a nice twist for the franchise. Unfortunately, Lynn-Holly Johnson’s Bibi Dahl was very annoying but given that was how she was written Johnson’s portrayal really brought it out and so I must give her applause for that but every character in the film except Kristatos did not like her which is saying a lot. The film went by at a nice clip after an intriguing opening sequence, in fact the various chase scenes are among the best I’ve seen of Moore’s era including the ski chase that I put above The Spy Who Loved Me opening. While the film had various action sequences that had been used in some variation in previous installments, they were done in such a way to be original. Unlike the last two films of the franchise, this film’s total absence of recent pop culture genre cash-ins was a welcome change as well as from the over-the-top gadgets. If there were any criticism that need to be expressed it was for the third film in a row the ending is a comedic gag involving Bond and love interest having sex in front of very important people. A second criticism is the film’s titular theme song that is alright, performed very well by Sheena Easton who features in the title sequence, but given we could have gotten a Debbie Harry written and Blondie performed “For Your Eyes Only”, the one we got—no shade to Sheena Easton—doesn’t come close. For Your Eyes Only is a massive step up from the previous installment in the Bond franchise as it not only called back to earlier films but stopped the harmful genre swerves and inclusion of other pop culture ideas. While Roger Moore is starting to show his age like Sean Connery did his last appearance and especially in sharing the screen with noticeably younger women, it was still a good turn in the role.
