A View to a Kill (1985)
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A psychotic businessman (Christopher Walken) plans to plunge Silicon Valley into the ocean to create a worldwide microchip monopoly for himself in Roger Moore’s final outing as James Bond. A View to Kill is more aggressively paced than other Bond films, and features more than its fair share of set pieces and stunts, including a parachute jump off the Eiffel Tower and a climactic gunfight atop the Golden Gate bridge. Walken and Grace Jones play memorable villains. Jones, in particular, leaves a lasting impression. She’s more than a beautiful face here, thanks to a screenplay that gives her character a respectable arc. John Barry’s score is one of my favorites in the franchise, as is the title song, performed by Duran Duran. I love how Barry incorporates the song’s melody (which he cowrote) into the score, to both highly romantic and triumphant effects. In addition to this being Moore’s swan song, it would also be the last to feature the late Lois Maxwell, who played Miss Moneypenny in every film up to that point (all 14 of them). With Tanya Roberts.