For Your Eyes Only (film)

Nice crossbow!
"The Chinese have a saying: 'Before setting off on Revenge, you first dig two graves.'"
—James Bond to Melina Havelock

A British spy ship accidentally fishes out a mine and goes to the bottom. Unfortunately it contains a secret device that sends orders to British nuclear missile submarines.

007, after visiting Tracy's grave and dropping someone who strongly resembles Blofeld down a chimney (at what is now the location of the Millennium Dome, which would feature in The World Is Not Enough), is sent to find the ship and who was responsible for the murders of two people looking for it. While shadowing his target, he is captured and then saved via a crossbow bolt, after which he meets Melina Havelock, the Girl of the Movie and a Hot Amazon Archer who wants to get Revenge for her murdered parents.

One of the very few Bond films in which the Soviets are explicitly bad guys (the others tend to involve them as allies against a common evil). Even here, they are more respectful competitors; after all, if you hear of a chance to get a key item that could give you a strategic advantage over your official enemies, you'd have to be a utter idiot not to make a play for it. As it is, General Gogol not only survives uninjured in the attempt, but stops Bond from being shot when he destroys the device at the end of the film and concedes the loss without a fuss.

This film is somewhat of a mish-mash of two Fleming short stories (For Your Eyes Only and Risico), with a scene from Live and Let Die thrown in and some more plot added. It has also been compared to From Russia with Love, as the aforementioned secret device is similar to a MacGuffin featured in the earlier film.

Perhaps as a reaction to the perceived excesses of goofy humour and credibility-stretching adventure in the previous movie, Moonraker, this movie is far closer to a classic spy yarn, with almost no gadgets deployed, no "larger than life henchman with a gimmick" and the bad guys simply being shot (in one case) and going away empty-handed in the other.

The dark tone to the film (by far the darkest for Moore) oddly comes from Timothy Dalton. When he was first courted by Cubby Broccoli he was asked what kind of Bond he would play. He briefed Cubby on a much darker, edgier Bond grounded in reality, and this script was born, making a note of killing off the main series villain before the opening credits to make way for the new direction. By the time the new script was ready, Moore had decided to do another one, and Dalton that he was too young to play Bond. so with the script ready & waiting, Moore slipped into this moody and morally ambiguous Bond, something we didn't see again until Timothy Dalton took the role.

Memorable moments in the movie:

  • The pre-titles sequence, in which a helicopter is flown indoors and then Bond gets his revenge on Ernst Stavro Blofeld once and for all for Tracy.
  • The famous (and still tense on re-watch) scene in which Bond is hanging from a cliff.
  • The Colombo/Kristatos switcheroo, in which the latter turns out to be the villain after it's initially made out that he's the goodie.
  • A Margaret Thatcher impersonator (complete with her own Denis).
  • Bond kicking a car off a cliff.
  • Car chase in a yellow Citroën 2CV through olive groves.
  • Underwater fight between Bond, Melina and a villain in a JIM suit.
  • A Bond Girl with a crossbow.
  • The Bill Conti-composed disco-like score.
Tropes used in For Your Eyes Only (film) include:
  • Action Girl: Melina is perhaps the forerunner of future, more proactive, Bond Girls.
  • The Alleged Car: Bond's Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me self-destructs when a Mook tries to open it, forcing Bond and Melina to go through a car chase in the latter's beat-up Citroën 2CV.
  • The Archer: Melina's Weapon of Choice is a crossbow.
  • Bad Habits: Q dresses as an Orthodox priest to provide information to Bond.
  • Bald of Evil: The unnamed Blofeld in the opening sequence.
  • Batman Cold Open: The opening sequence has nothing to do with the actual plot, but damn does it look awesome.
    • There was a possibility Moore wouldn't return after Moonraker. The opening was designed in case a new actor had to play Bond, and they wanted to establish the backstory with Bond's wife.
    • And the opening does play into a theme within the movie: do we have a right to avenge our lost loved ones?
  • Between My Legs: Famously on the movie's poster.
  • Blond Guys Are Evil: Kriegler.
  • Breakaway Pop Hit: Probably the only reason anyone would connect Sheena Easton's song to this movie is that they share a title.
  • Broken Bird: Poor Melina.
  • The Cameo: Margaret Thatcher! Not really...
  • Chivalrous Pervert: Bond deliberately ignores Bibi Dahl's attempts to seduce him. Then again, she's just 16.
  • Climbing Climax
  • Continuity Nod: Bond visits his wife's grave in the opening, which was intended as a way to ease a new actor into the role, before Moore decided to come back.
    • The musical lock to the Identograph room is opened with the tune of "Nobody Does It Better," the theme song from The Spy Who Loved Me.
  • Cool Car: Subverted; Bond's usual gadget-laden car blows up when the bad guys try to break into it, forcing him and Melina to go through the resulting car chase in her beat-up Citroën.
  • Cutting the Electronic Leash
  • Darker and Edgier: Especially in the Moore era, and it wouldn't be the last attempt at this.
  • Dawson Casting: Lynn-Holly Johnson, 22 when the movie came out, plays the underaged (16, according to some sources) Bibi Dahl. Contrast Carole Bouquet, only a year older, whose character seems to be in her late twenties.
    • Roger Moore, the oldest actor to play Bond and 53 when the film premiered, may also be an example.
  • Disposable Pilot: In The Teaser, the pilot of the helicopter Bond is in gets electrocuted mid-flight.
  • The Dragon: Emile Leopold Locque for Kristatos and Eric Kriegler for General Gogol.
  • Dropped Him Down A Chimney: "Blofeld"
  • The Eighties: Already in full swing, on the very first 80s Bond, no less. ESPECIALLY the theme song.
  • Fille Fatale: Oh, Bibi.
  • Fingertip Drug Analysis
  • Foreshadowing: Before being taken on a ride by Blofeld, a priest informs Bond that a helicopter from Universal Exports is coming to pick Bond up. He then makes the sign of the cross toward Bond as the helicopter takes off.
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Locque to a T.
  • Friendly Enemy: General Gogol just shrugs after Bond destroys the MacGuffin he flew in from Moscow to purchase.
    • It helps that Gogol already met Bond and that a stalemate was an acceptable deal.
    • Never mind that KGB assassinations tended to be subtle. Blatantly blowing Bond away on Western soil would have been a diplomatic nightmare for the Soviets.
      • That wasn't the reason though (there wouldn't have been too many witnesses around for that, anyway). Gogol was just being a good sport, as he didn't need to have Bond killed for anything.
  • Gunman with Three Names: Emile Leopold Locque.
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Once Columbo speaks, it's pretty evident that it's Tevye.
  • Hot Amazon: Melina.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Kriegler is a biathlon champion but is unable to shoot Bond every time.
  • Kick the Dog: Kristatos slapping Bibi.
    • A minor but amusing one; Locque is paying off Cuban assassin Hector Gonzales with a Briefcase Full of Money. Gonzales takes out a wad of cash and throws it to one of his Paid Harem. When Gonzales gets killed, Locque just picks up the briefcase and leaves, with his henchman snatching the wad from the girl as he walks past.
  • Kick the Son of a Bitch: Bond kicking Locque off the cliff is, however justified given the nature of the victim, entirely deliberate murder.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Blofeld as mentioned above. Blofeld is never named as such or fully shown. He is bald, and he does have a similar outfit and the white cat in his lap pretty much tells the audience who he is. The explosion at the end of Diamonds Are Forever must have left him alive but paralyzed, hence the wheelchair.
  • MacGuffin: ATAC
  • MacGuffin Delivery Service:

Kristatos: Thank you, Mr. Bond. You have saved us the trouble of disarming it.

Lisl: "Oh, me nighties slipping!"
Bond: "So's your accent, Countess."

  • Paid Harem: Gonzales has a number of bikini-clad women lounging around his pool.
  • Parasol Parachute
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: Bond to Bibi Dahl as she tries to seduce him.
  • Powered Armor: The mook in the deep-sea JIM suit (played by the movie's stunt coordinator) Bond and Melina must fight off underwater.
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "You left this with Ferrara, I believe."
  • Pretty in Mink: A few worn during the scenes in the Alps, including a coat Melina wears.
  • Psycho for Hire: Locque.
  • Put on a Bus: M is absent from the film (in the movie, he's said to be on leave) because Bernard Lee, the original M, died before production began. He would return played by Robert Brown in Octopussy.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Melina, hunting down Gonzalez and whoever hired him.
  • Sea Mine: One is used to sink the British spy trawler, turns out, that wasn't the only one The Dragon had.
  • Sequel Escalation: Inverted. Moonraker featured a space station and a plot to wipe out humanity, For Your Eyes Only is about a stolen MacGuffin.
  • Show Some Leg: The villains provide one for Bond as he's infiltrating Gonzales hangout, and a member of his Paid Harem starts smooching with one of the guards, enabling Bond to sneak past.
  • Steal the Surroundings: When a spy ship goes missing, it turns out that to steal machinery onboard worth millions on the black market, the bad guys sunk the ship, killing everyone on board, so they could retrieve the equipment later by submarine.
  • Take That: Blofeld's appearance was a swipe at Kevin McClory.
    • The destruction of Bond's Cool Car while fleeing Gonzalez's compound was a swipe at the overuse of gadget-laden vehicles during the Seventies. Bond and Melina are forced to flee in a beat-up clunker instead.
  • Theme Tune Cameo: The code to the room containing the identigraph is part of "Nobody Does It Better".
  • Title Drop: A very subtle and rather unique variation. During his assignment briefing, Bond is handed a document marked "Classified" and secured with a seal marked "For Your Eyes Only".
  • Two-Person Pool Party: Although it takes place in the sea.
  • Underwater Ruins
  • The Voiceless: Locque again. We know he can speak, because we see him do it in one scene, but we never hear it. Fittingly, the only time he makes a sound is screaming as Bond shoves him to his doom.
  • Wafer-Thin Mint: Although, as described above, the pin thrown in a pending car doesn't bring it down: Bond's kick does.
    • Roger Moore argued against leaving the kick in, as he thought that might be too cold even for Bond. It was left in, though.
      • And it was pretty damn awesome. For such a simple kill, it's probably one of the best in the entire Bond series.
  • You Killed My Parents: Melina's motivation to join Bond's quest.
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