The plot is another one of those Blah Blah things were Bond (Roger Moore) has to find a missing whatchamacallit that's very, very important to England before the Soviets get their hands on it. Along the way Bond travels to the prerequisite exotic locations and meets the required amount of women and gets in about twice as many action scenes than usual.
This over reliance on action isn't surprising. Director John Glen had previously headed up second units on several previous Bonds, as such he was responsible for shooting several of the franchises more breathtaking moments, including that ski jump in The Spy Who Loved Me. With this film he doesn't focus much on plot, or drama, rather he plays to his action strength to mixed results.
Now action is one of the hardest genre’s to do. Part of it has to do with the fact that action scenes aren’t very relateble. We all know what it feels like to be in love, but few of us will ever be in fist fights or car chases. Yet these are exactly the experiences these films try to relate. There are, broadly speaking, two ways to portray action: Chaos and Control. Both kinds of scenes are prevalent here.
In a chaotic action scene, things happen and that’s that. Who, how and why aren’t strictly speaking important in the face of pure spectacle. Take the 8 minute ski-chase. It occurs for no other reason than that there’s usually a chase at that point of the running time. It’s a go-for-broke scene is more interested in being a cross-section of Winter Olympic events than anything else and goes on for so long that one really forgets how it started and why. There is no clarity and everything is vague and undefined. This scene is an extreme, but it’s also fairly typical of many of the action scenes in the films first half. Scenes that are overfrequent, overlong and underwhelming.
Strangely enough, Eyes seems to get its act together in the second half. Action scenes become more ordered and controlled. A controlled action scene is built on clear goals and clear action. One such scene finds Bond struggling to scale a mountain before a henchman pulls out the rope anchors. The conception is as simple as possible: “Do this before that happens,” and the scene works because of this simplicity.
Also, despite some of the usual silliness, Eyes is a much darker film than many of the previous Moore era Bonds. Violence is more prevalent and more direct. The film's most memorable scene involves Bond kicking a car and its occupant off a cliff. The impact of the scene is ruined by one of those puns that were sly and fun in Dr. No but have long since become a tiresome irritant, but that should not detract from the fact that for one brief, shining moment Roger Moore looks like a badass.
Eyes is a huge improvement over Moonraker but it’s still just an okay Bond film. There are some great moments but on the whole it’s merely adequate. Anyone catching the second half of this on TV will probably like it better than if they saw the whole thing, but you can just as easily skip this one.
Grade: B-
Enjoy these other Bondathon entries:
You Only Live TwiceOn Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
The Man With The Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
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