The First Gritty James Bond Reboot Actually Happened in 1981

For Your Eyes Only, released 40 days agone this summer, brought the James Bond franchise rachis to Terra firma. And it was time. Roger Moore, who'd replaced Sean Connery as 007, delivered the goods in the lean and mean Live and Let Pall and The Man with the Favored Gun, but by the metre The Spy Who Loved Maine rolled around, things were getting cockamamie. Slave, now played more broadly, even jokingly by Moore, grappled with Jaws, a hulking baddie with metal dentition. And then came Moonraker, which came off like a sci-fi/comedy Bond ruffle sort o than a British spy thriller/action moving picture laced with well-placed bits of humor. In earnest, much of the film unfolded in space. It was big and gaudy and over-produced. Jaws even returned, falling through a circus tent, and meeting the love of his life in the process. Artful? Yup. Diverting even? Yup. But right for a Tie movie? No, no, no.

Now, to be clear-thinking, Moore was always fun, a solid Bond, and he was THE double-0 for a generation of fans. Jaws, and the actor who played him, Richard Kiel, were awful. The Spy Who Loved Pine Tree State and Moonraker some had their moments, and upon its press release, Moonraker raked in more money worldwide than any other dealership installment. Still, they weren't particularly unspoilt films and they some strayed way too far from the firm Bond formula.

This brings USA to For Your Eyes Only. It's non a top-drawer Stick t, but it's a prime Julian Bond and a necessary soft reboot. After the over-the-meridianMoonraker, and a generally sillier take back on the Bond series, For Your Eyes Only — directed by editor program and second-unit director turned director John Glen — got back to fundamental principle. Bond relies along almost no gadgets in this film and dispatches some of his enemies more ruthlessly than in previous films.

Here are our top five reasons why For Your Eyes Only works better than you recall.

5. Great opening sequence: Bond certificate finds himself treed in a whirlybird being controlled remotely past a bald-headed man who uses a wheelchair and sports a Nehru jacket crown. Cue the race against time, as 007 tries to attain control of the copter. He does so, of course, and with more than a little glee, He pilots the chopper, scoops rising the whiney villain and drops him down a massive chimney. Bring in some great medicine by Bill Conti, and you've got a bravura scene.

4. The title song: Sheena Easton sings the hell out of "For Your Eyes Only," delivering it as a power ballad. The unreal Bond title sequence director Maurice Binder gave fans everything they could maybe desire: nude female silhouettes, phallic shots of 007's Walther PPK, gauzy images that mistily reflect the story (in this instance, everything is, well… wet, since a great deal of the film takes place in and along water), etc. Soh gorgeous was Easton that she holds the distinction of organism the one and only singer ever to appear in the title sequence. Interestingly, Easton wasn't first choice for the gig. Blondie's Debbie Harry sang a identical different song also called "For Your Eyes Only." It's an OK melodic line, but not right for a Bond adventure.

3. Roger Moore: The actor was in his embryonic 50s when he made For Your Eyes Only, and atomic number 2 was as suave and charming as ever – and as deadly, too. Was he starting to show his age? Sure. As a result, Sir Roger looks a touch stiffer and slower in running scenes, and information technology's laughably easy to see where his stuntman took o'er for the really athletic stuff. Not everyone can be Turkey cock Cruise, who'll exist hardly diffident of 60 when the next Mission: Impossible movies debut, and not only still looks impossibly immature, but continues to perform his ain insane stunts.

2. The Bond Girls. Carole Fragrancy as Melina is fantastic; and we recognize that's non a popular assessment. The camera simply loved the French model-turned-actress (and now wine impresario), and she and Dudley Stuart John Moore shared some attractive interpersonal chemistry. Less successful was Lynn-Buddy Holly Johnson as Bibi Dahl (get it?), the perky ice skater with the major hots for 007 (World Health Organization, thankfully, declines her advances, though it's yet a wince-worth bit). Meanwhile, Cassandra Harris hit the right notes as Countess Lisl von Schlaf. If her name rings a bell, she was married to Pierce Brosnan, WHO later played Bond. Harris was just 43 when she succumbed to ovarian cancer in 1991. Overall, the female cast of this Bond is more progressive than previous entries of the Marianne Craig Moore era.

1. The action: There's tons of glorious action to behold here, all assembled or so a simple plot (involving Britain, in the person of Bond, and the Russians, trying to retrieve the ATAC, a missile-control twist, from a hollow British ship). The underwater successiveness with Bond and Melina – or their stunt doubles – being bound together and pulled at high speeds through the irrigate, hitting corral (which draws blood), and attracting the attention of sharks, is a doozy. Even better is an sprawly sequence with 007 skiing blue a mountain (and a bobsleigh track) pursued by machine-gun-toting guys on motorcycles and skis. And, permanently touchstone, there's an yellow-school car trail (with an amusingly depressed-tech vehicle) that's exhilarating A hell, and Bond dangles perilously from the edge of a drop-off. You didn't believe most of the action in Moore's other Bonds was real. But in this one, at least for a literally cliffhanging moment, you bought it.

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