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Review
Archives
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Today's
Date is:
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FOR
YOUR EYES ONLY- SPECIAL EDITION
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Reviewed
by: |
James
Welch |
| Genre: |
Action/Adventure |
| Video: |
Widescreen
2:35.1 |
| Audio: |
Dolby
Digital 5.1 English Dolby Stereo Surround French |
| Language: |
English,
French |
| Subtitle: |
English,
French |
| Length: |
127
minutes approx. |
| Rating: |
PG-13 |
| Release
Date: |
10-19-99 |
| Studio: |
MGM-UA |
| Commentary:
|
Two
feature length - first featuring director John Glen and members
of the cast second with producer Michael G Wilson and other
crew members. |
| Documentaries:
|
Inside
For Your Eyes Only |
| Featurettes:
|
None. |
| Filmography/Biography:
|
None. |
|
Interviews: |
None. |
| Trailers/TV
Spots: |
Original
Theatrical Trailers and Radio Spots |
| Alternate/Deleted
Scenes: |
None |
| Music
Video: |
"For
Your Eyes Only" - Sheena Easton |
| Other:
|
Behind
The Scenes Still Gallery Featuring Over 150 Images, Collectible
"Making of" Booklet, Active Storyboard Sequences and Final Film
Executions, trailer for the Playstation game Tomorrow Never
Dies. |
| Cast
and Crew: |
Roger Moore,
Carole Bouquet, Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Julian Glover, Cassandra
Harris, Jill Bennett, Michael Gothard, John Wyman, Jack Hedley,
Walter Gotell, James Villiers, Desmond Llewelyn, Lois Maxwell. |
| Screenplay
by: |
Richard Maibaum
and Michael G Wilson |
| Produced
by: |
Albert R Broccoli |
| Directed
By: |
John Glen |
| Music: |
Bill Conti |
| The
Review: |
After the
exploits of literally sending James Bond into space with the
enjoyable if flawed Moonraker, Cubby Broccoli wisely decided
to bring Bond back to earth, stripped of nearly all his gadgets,
with Roger Moore's most serious stab at 007, For Your Eyes Only.
Marking the directing debut of John Glen, who had worked on
numerous Bond movies since his debut as editor and second unit
director with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, it would see
the start of a new era of Bond movies which would continue throughout
the 80's. Indeed, every Bond movie during this decade had John
Glen at the helm, and For Your Eyes Only hints at what was ultimately
to come with 1989's gritty thriller, Licence To Kill. The more
serious tone is immediately apparent with the opening scene
where Bond is seen visiting the grave of his wife's grave, and
whilst Moore's customary quips are still to be found within
Richard Maibaum and Michael G Wilson's script, they are far
more sparsely littered than in Moore's previous Bond outings.
Many people claim this to be Moore's best performance in the
role, and it's certainly his most subdued. It's a shame therefore
that his co-star and Bond girl, Carole Bouquet, is so wooden
throughout the movie. Whilst there is a chemistry between them,
it's constantly diffused by her inadequate performance, although
her striking good looks do compensate at times, and it's easy
to see why she was chosen for the part. The most impressive
asset of the movie though, is the new style that Glen brings
visually to the screen - that and the succesful idea that Bond
is given hardly any gadgets at all, meaning he has to rely on
his wits and skills rather than technology to win through. Glen
paces the movie well, although it does take a while to find
it's feet, with a somewhat awkard first quarter hampering the
story when it feels it's ready to move onto the next stage,
and his editing style is quite superb, particularly during all
the action sequences which work almost flawlessly. The awesome
ski sequence where Bond is chased by villains on motorbikes,
is one of the best action sequences within the entire Bond series,
and I shall never forget the first time I saw Bond being chased
by one of the motorbikes on the bobsleigh track - it remains
a jaw dropping moment even today. Bill Conti's music score on
the other hand is perhaps the only major disappointment within
the film, as despite some beautifully rendered moments (inmcluding
an excellent theme song, sung by Sheena Easton), the action
scenes are infested with what can only be described as cheesey
disco music, sounding more Saturday Night Fever than James Bond!
Along with Eric Serra's awful music for Goldeneye, it's the
most disappointing score within the entire series. That aside,
For Your Eyes Only remains a top class entry that gets better
and better upon every viewing. |
| Image
and Sound |
The new
widescreen transfer (2:35.1 ratio) is extremely impressive,
with an enhanced clarity never seen on previous formats, although
if I had to pick a fault it would only be that occassionally
the picture is a bit too soft. It's not a major problem though,
and I really am nit-picking in trying to find a fault. The action
set pieces, particularly the snow scenes, come across especially
well, giving the wonderful photography a new lease of life,
but perhaps best of all is the sheer quality of the picture
during the underwater scenes - hugely impressive, without a
noticeable trace of grain to be found. The same can be said
of the aggressive new Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, which showcases
something that the Bond producers (not to mention the people
involved in future Bond DVD's) should look at more closely nowadays.
That is with Bill Conti's score which is never swamped by explosions,
gun fire or schreeching tyres, unlike more recent Bond movies
such as Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough. True
Conti's score is often intrusive, but that's only because of
ill-advised composing on his behalf (the disco music accompanying
the action), and when you realise how low in the mix David Arnold's
scores are for his two Brosnan movies, you need only look at
For Your Eyes Only to hear how much better it would be to hear
the score louder than the explosions and mayhem that is taking
place up there on the screen. After all, isn't the score meant
to enhance the film, not just accompany it as background music?
Apart from Conti's crystal clear score though, there are numerous
explosive sequences that will have your subwoofer rocking, whilst
bullets whizz past your rear speakers. It's just refreshing
to hear a score as high up in the mix as it should be. Am I
alone in this? Hmm, maybe I am! |
| The
Extras |
Inside For
Your Eyes Only, once again written and directed by John Cork,
is another impressive 30 minute documentary made in 1999 for
the DVD release. Like the other "Inside" documentaries, it's
full of intresting facts and interviews with various members
of the crew and cast, including Roger Moore, Carole Bouquet,
Topol, and director John Glen. Patrick Macnee narrates with
his usual panache, and yet again I was left breathless with
just how much information Cork manages to fit into the 30 minutes.
From Michael Wilson explaining how after Moonraker the only
way for the series to go was down back to earth (stripping 007
of his gadgets), to the story of how one of the stunningly beautiful
extras at the Spanish home of the assassin Gonzalez was actually
a woman who had once been a man, there's virtually no rock left
unturned. We are taken through how John Glen was promoted from
action unit director to fully fledged director, and how he bought
in many new faces behind the camera, many of whom would stay
with the Bond family for many years to come. Glen also lets
us in on his trademark which is seen in every one of his Bond
films - nothing remarkable, just that he always has a pigeon
fly out from an unexpected place. True, many Bond fans may already
be aware of this, but I wasn't! These are just a glimpse at
the secrets unveiled during the documentary, and for any fan
of the film it ranks as an essential extra. The For Your Eyes
Only music video, performed by Sheena Easton, is just the main
title sequence of the movie as created by Maurice Binder, and
is in good picture quality, even if the Dolby Surround 2.0 soundtrack
can't match the Dolby Digital 5.1 version played during the
actual film. The Behind the scenes Still Gallery, featuring
over 150 stills, is like all the Bond releases, split into various
sections, and whilst all are fun to flick through, it isn't
as comprehensive as one might like. Indeed, some of the best
stills are shown during the end credits of the "Inside" documentary
anway! Still, a minor quibble. Two radio spots, utilised to
promote the release of the film upon it's original release,
are nothing of note really, and Roger Moore's voice sounds so
deep and slow that I swore he was drunk! It does seem that both
short radio spots are played at extra slow speed and I wonder
if they were originally like that when broadcasted, or whether
it was just an era during the DVD production? The latter is
more likely I would think. Instead of just one or two trailers,
we are treated to four here, although to be honest they're all
so similiar that you only need watch one of them. The American
trailer is particularly longer than the others though, although
not to the film's advantage as it shows nearly all the great
set pieces from the film. More is often less, and this goes
to prove that the best trailers are of the short and inventive
varitey. Two active storyboard sequences, showcasing the "Snowmobile
Chase" and "Retreiving the Atac", are genuinely interesting
additions, especially if you're fascinated by the development
process of seeing how closely the early ideas from the storyboard
came to fruition within the finished film. It also shows how
much pre-planning goes into a huge action set piece, but then
you probably knew that anway. |
| Commentary |
Boasting
two audio commentaries, as For Your Eyes Only does, is not always
a sound idea - not that I'm complaining. It's always nice to
have more extras on a DVD than less, but sometimes having two
commentaries can result in both tracks going over the same ground
as each other. Admittedly, the Bond series has been guilty of
this, with so many people asked what they thought of Cubby Broccoli,
to which they all reply he was a great producer and a wonderful
human being, that you begin to think you're listening to a broken
record. I'm being a bit harsh really, as I'm sure Cubby really
was both of those things. Not only that, but the audio commentaries
for the pre-Brosnan era of Bond have been compiled by various
interviews, and not by having the cast and crew members actually
sitting down and watching the film whilst making comments. The
first audio commentary features director John Glen and the majority
of the main cast being interviewed about various aspects of
working on the film, whilst our host David Naylor tries to fit
them to the appropiate scenes in the film. Like John Cork (host
for some of the other Bond DVD audio commentaries, as well as
director and writer of the "Inside" documenataries), Naylor
is an informative guide and takes great joy in exploring the
past history of all the main cast members and some of the lesser
known players as well. He also takes us into John Glen's past,
of how he started in the business at Shepperton Studios as an
office boy and messenger, eventually landing a job in the cutting
room as a junior at Shepperton two years later. Naylor doesn't
stop at covering all details of Glen's and the cast's history
though. Going far more into detail than Cork usually does, he
painstakingly delves into the history of the locations for the
film, including a long discussion about Corfu, and even of the
popularity of the 2 CV car that Bond has to drive with Melina.
Indeed, whilst the discussions from the likes of John Glen and
Topol are never less than entertaining, it's Naylor's knowledge
that actually maintains the listener's attention. The second
audio commentary is arranged in the same style, although this
time it's the more technical recollections of the crew members
that Naylor guides us through. Yet again though, despite the
fact that occassionally you just have different people discussing
the same subjects within the first commentary track, it's Naylor's
detailed analysis of the various crew member's careers that
proves to be the essential part of the commentary. So, the fact
that the two commentaries both make for fascinating listening
rather disproves my point mentioned above about a singular commentary
being better. That's really down to the expertise of Naylor
and the producers of the track, and they deserve huge credit
for compiling the numerous interviews and utilising their extensive
knowledge of the Bond phenomena to produce such quality as this.
|
| Final
Words: |
Another
excellent Bond DVD then. MGM seem to take a look of flak these
days for producing DVD's that don't have that many extra features,
although the winners of that unwanted trophy have to go to Paramount,
and whilst I've always been pretty impressed with their discs,
their Bond collection is still head and shoulders above any
other discs they have released to date. For Your Eyes Only is
a top class Bond thriller, and showcases Glen's under-rated
visual style to great effect. Not only does he strip Bond of
nearly all his gadgets, but he even has Roger Moore giving a
fairly gritty performance. True, it still has many many laughs,
but it set the tone for what Glen was ultimately to achieve
with Timothy Dalton in the late 80's. Fitting then, that this
DVD is a winner all the way. From the excellent Dolby Digital
5.1 mix, to the blemish free picture (even if it's a bit soft
in places), it's a disc that will have you returning to the
film again and again. Great stuff. |
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