As you (should) know, Bond 22, Quantum of Solace, is coming out this November 14th. In honor of this momentous occasion, I have decided to spend a little time each week digging into my James Bond DVD collection and talking about the best and worst of the series up until now. I also like to compare the movies to the source material, when it exists. I find all of this very entertaining, but if you don’t, the scroll button is still right over there. >>>>>

“For Your Eyes Only” has one of the strangest opening title sequences of any film, ever. It certainly wins the prize for Bond movies. While standing at his wife’s grave, something that hasn’t been referenced through the entire Roger Moore as Bond canon, he is picked up my a remotely-controlled helicopter. Controlled by Blofeld. But we can’t see his face, because none of the previous Blofelds showed up, I guess. He’s in a motorized wheelchair this time, and Bond drops him down a smokestack while he vainly promises to give Bond “a delicatessan in stainless steel.”

What.

Anyway, the main plot revolves around a spy boat that is disguised as a fishing trawler in Greece, until someone blows it up. A marine archaeologist living in Greece at the time is recruited to find it, but then he and his wife are dispatched by a hitman, daughter swears revenge, blah blah blah.

It’s all loosely based on one of the short stories from the Fleming collection “For Your Eyes Only,” although it had to be greatly expanded to fill out a film. It becomes very messy at this point, involving Greek smugglers, the KGB, and a girl named Bibi Dahl (really) who’s supposed to be funny because she is obviously very young and wants to get in Bond’s trousers, but it’s really just disgusting and sad because he’s so old. Moore should have taken the dignified route and worn a girdle, like Shatner.

Overall, this is not a movie I would recommend to anyone who enjoys movies. (Fun fact: one of the pool girls in the film is actually a transsexual. You can see her in the picture at the top of the article; click for big. She’s been the subject of much film legend, but she’s pretty indistinguishable from any of the other girls.)

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