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For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 1981’s For Your Eyes Only, the twelfth James Bond adventure. Bond is on the hunt for a sunken bit of technology that could spell big trouble for the British government. Bond also gets tangled in an absolute badass’ quest for vengeance, and surely that’s going to end well, right? Right?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I’m sorry this is so late, but you did a fantastic job with your last two recaps! I can’t believe you’re so close to the finish line! I’m going to keep this extra short to dive right into the action, but I wanted to say again that you’re doing an amazing job and I can’t wait for your next recap!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Michael G. Wilson & Richard Maibaum, film directed by John Glen

We’re old hands at this now, so the standard gun barrel sequence holds no surprises for us. What is surprising, though, is that we open on James Bond bringing flowers to the grave of his late wife, Teresa Bond. Remember Tracy? It’s been a while! Bond doesn’t have long to mourn in peace, though, because a priest runs up to inform Bond that the office is sending a helicopter to pick him up. The chopper arrives, but Bond is suspicious when the priest appears to give his last rights as the helicopter takes off. Bond was right to be suspicious, because just then we cut to Bond’s archnemesis, Ernst Stavro Blofeld! Well, I mean, I think it’s Blofeld… We don’t get a good look at his face, but I’d know that kitty anywhere. Despite now being apparently wheelchair-bound and sporting a neck brace after his last encounter with Bond, Blofeld still has a trick up his sleeve and sends a signal to the chopper that kills the pilot. Blofeld controls the helicopter remotely and instead of just crashing it immediately and killing Bond easily, Blofeld has some fun and whips him around a bit. This gives Bond time to get control of the helicopter and steer it right over to Blofeld. He hooks onto Blofeld’s wheelchair and drops him into a smokestack while Blofeld babbles incoherently about buying Bond a stainless-steel delicatessen. At leas the cat got away.

After that bonkers opening, we jump to our trippy title sequence where we actually get to see Sheena Easton belting out the undeniable bop, “For Your Eyes Only”. This is a real slow jam, and the standard crew of naked silhouetted ladies even manage to slow down their flips and summersaults to match the mood.

With that banger behind us, we jump to a fishing boat which is actually yet another nautical spy base. The fishermen really goof up and accidentally haul in an old mine which promptly blows the ship, spy base and all, to hell. In MI6, M is informed about the accident; turns out there’s trouble, because the water the ship sank in ain’t that deep and now there’s a chance the damn KGB can get ahold of tech aboard the ship. MI6 hires a marine archeologist to secretly locate the sunken base and get the goods before those damned dirty Russians can get their hands on it, but he and his wife are both gunned down in front of their daughter, Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet). The freshly orphaned Havelock regards her murdered parents and craves vengeance.

Back in London, M gives Bond the lowdown on what exactly is at stake here. The ship that was sunk was carrying the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC), which can be used to launch missiles from British subs. Bond is filled in on the deaths of the marine archeologist and his wife, and told they were killed by a hitman named Hector Gonzales (Stefan Kalipha). Bond is sent to Madrid find Gonzales and figure out who hired him to ice the Havelocks. Bond infiltrates Gonzales’ villa while some truly unexpected music plays all around him. Bond is almost instantly captured by Gonzales’ men, but then Gonzales is unexpectedly killed with an arrow to the back. Bond makes a run for it and runs into the uninvited archer: the utterly badass and utterly parentless Melina Havelock. Bond and Havelock make for his car but it gets blown up, so they take Havelock’s bitchin’ ride instead and she leads some goons on a chase that would put Bond to shame. The car tips but some friendly villagers right it and Bond, in a move that is as unnecessary as it is unwanted, decides he’s going to drive Havelock’s car now. Through dumb luck and none of Havelock’s cold precision Bond eludes the goons (to be clear, he totally flipped the car at one point, too, but Havelock is a lot cooler than him and didn’t pull a dick move by demanding to drive again because she’s not that petty and she has nothing to prove to this limey showoff).

Bond gives an absolutely insufferable lecture about the dangers of seeking revenge to Havelock who, much like me, has no time for his shit. You’re seriously going to try to warn her away from seeking vengeance after dropping Blofeld down a smokestack, like, half an hour ago, James? C’mon. He finally skulks back to England before he can get in the way of anymore of her awesome plans. Bond is scolded like the overgrown child he is by M and told to use some magical Q tech (which is really just an electronic sketch artist) to identify a man he saw paying Gonzales. Unbelievably, Q’s toy works and the man is identified as Emile Leopold Locque (Michael Gothard).

(How in the world has there not been a Bond character with the surname ‘Gothard’?)

Bond heads to Italy to track down Locque. In his hotel bathroom he finds a message waiting for him on his mirror, and it leads him to his Italian contact, Luigi Mario – No, sorry, Luigi Ferrara (John Moreno). Ferrara introduces him to a businessman and informant named Aris Kristatos (Julian Glover). Kristatos tells him that Locque is employed by a guy named Milos Columbo (Chaim Topol). I feel like we could have skipped a few steps in this introduction chain, but alright. Kristatos and Columbo used to fight in the Resistance together, but they took different paths and now Columbo is a seriously bad dude.

In the village, Bond catches sight of none other than Melina “Motherfucker” Havelock. That’s right, bitches, it took MI6’s most advanced Etch A Sketch technology, a ridiculous string of introductions and absolutely no effort from Bond himself for him to get this far, and this orphan got here before him with nothing but her wits, her thirst for vengeance and the ghosts of her dead parents to guide her way. Please, somebody, give this woman a spinoff!

Bond just can’t let Havelock tend to her own business, so he has to spy on her. Some motorcycle thugs race toward her, and Bond gets in the way of what I’m sure was a carefully laid trap of Havelock’s design. He drags her over to a sled and we find out she’s only here because someone pretending to be Bond sent her a telegraph telling her to meet him here. Aw, come on, writers, don’t nerf her like that! Havelock insists that Bond has no right to tell her what to do, but he slams his arm into her and forces her to stay in the sled. She tries to escape several more times, but he forces her to stay in her dreadful presence. He tells her to be a good girl and wait for him to do all the work himself, because we just can’t have nice things in this franchise.

Some ice skater who looks like she’s fifteen tries to sleep with Bond and he refuses her because even he has some limits. They go off skiing together and he ditches her, only to be pursued by more motorcycle thugs and a sniper taking shots at him from above. Bond manages to ski to safety for a moment, but the thugs, now joined by one of Columbo’s henchmen, are still on his tail. If there’s one thing these movies love more than a boat chase it’s a ski chase, and this one’s really goin’ all out. Bond eventually meets up with Ferrara, who drives to safety and he skates around with that teenaged ice skater some more. The ice skater’s coach drags her away so some hockey players can try to kill Bond.

He escapes in time to find out that Ferrara has been killed by Columbo. This never would have happened on Havelock’s watch. Speaking of, Bond meets back up with her in Corfu and she takes him on a tour of the local sights. Havelock reminisces on the views that her super dead father loved, and Bond unnecessarily comforts her as she processes her grief. Bond meets up with Kristatos in a casino, and Kristatos warns him again about how bad of a dude Columbo is. Unbeknownst to Bond or Kristatos, they’re being recorded by one of Columbo’s goons. Bond decides to make a move on Columbo’s mistress, Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris). He successfully beds her, and she admits she knows he’s a spy and she’s supposed to get intel out of him.

Bond and the Countess go for a walk on the beach after banging all night long, and suddenly Locque shows up and Red Asphalts von Schlaf with a dune buggy. Locque is about to kill Bond, but suddenly Columbo’s men show up, chase Locque away and capture Bond. Columbo explains to Bond that Kristatos is actually the bad guy in all of this, he hired Locque and he’s working with the KGB to get the ATAC. Bond doesn’t immediately buy this, but Columbo gives him a gun as a show of good faith and the two get smashed on brandy. That night, they head to Kristatos’ warehouses where he’s secretly processing opium. Inside the warehouse they also find some old mines, so it turns out that fishing accident at the beginning of the movie was no accident.

Locque makes a break for it in a car, but Bond manages to shoot him and cause him to swerve nearly off a cliff. In revenge for the death of Bond’s best friend in the world, Luigi Ferrara, he cold-bloodedly kicks the car and causes it to fall to the rocks below, killing Locque. Afterward Bond tracks down Havelock, who’s busy carrying on her mega-dead father’s work in marine archeology and generally has no time for Bond’s bullshit. They head back onto her dead parents’ boat and Bond fills her in on the sitch with Kristatos. Havelock expertly translates some of her father’s notes and singlehandedly figures out where the sunken ship containing ATAC is located. She steers a minisub to the ship’s location while Bond makes himself as useful as balls on a dildo and slows her down at every turn.

The two suit up and head into the sunken ship, but Kristatos is lurking above and knows someone’s messing around near the ATAC. Havelock is naturally startled when confronted by a bunch of drowned sailors, and Bond takes the opportunity to condescend to her and tell her to go back to the safety of the sub. She says fuck that noise, and gets to work finding ATAC while he’s busy jerking himself off in his wetsuit. The two begin cutting ATAC free of the ship, but suddenly one of Kristatos’ men bursts in and knocks Bond aside like the sidekick he is. This allows the henchman to get ahold of Havelock and sever her air hose, much like her parents were severed from their mortal coil. While Havelock valiantly struggles with henchman, Bond manages to slap a bomb on his back and the two swim to safety, ATAC in hand, as he explodes.

Despite Havelock literally growing up around this sort of stuff, Bond takes it upon himself to coddle her once they get back to the sub and even decides to pilot it himself (it’s that car ride all over again!). Unfortunately, Kristatos has a mini sub of its own, and the two subs BattleBots it out for a while before Bond manages to steer them to safety, nearly destroying a priceless archeological site (and by extension, the life’s work of Havelock and the death’s work of her father) in the process. They finally make it back to the surface, but Kristatos is waiting for them and he seizes the ATAC. Havelock is worried about the men she left on the boat, but Bond only cares about being a big strong man and making sure Havelock is let go. Yeah, because she’s definitely going to just walk away from the guy who killed her parents and now apparently fed her crew to sharks, dumbass. There’s an incredibly gross moment where one of Kristatos’ disgusting henchmen cut Havelock out of her wetsuit, then Bond and Havelock are trussed up and dragged through the water behind Kristatos’ boat.

Bond and Havelock get raked over some coral and some sharks almost much ‘em, but Bond manages to cut their bindings and they make it back to Havelock’s dead parents’ boat. Thanks to a pet parrot formerly owned by the late Mr. Havelock, they’re informed of where Kristatos is hiding the ATAC. Bond, Havelock, Columbo and some of Columbo’s men head for an old monastery where Kristatos is holed up. Bond almost dies while scaling the mountain to reach Kristatos, but eventually makes it to the top and sends a basket down to pick everyone else up. That ice skater is here, too, by the way, but don’t ask my why because I haven’t got a clue. A KGB helicopter is on the way to pick up the ATAC, and Bond and co. fight their way toward Kristatos.

Bond wrestles the ATAC away from Kristatos just as the KGB arrive.

Now get ready for some bullshit. Havelock, crossbow in hand, is ready to bring some biblical vengeance down upon the man that turned her mother and father into corpses and orphaned both her and a parrot, but Bond, James “Drop a Dude Down a Smokestack Because Ten Years Ago He Killed the Woman He’d Been Married to For Three Hours” Bond, James “Kicks a Car Off a Cliff and Kills a Man in Retaliation for the Death of a Man He’d Known for Five Minutes” Bond, gets in her way and tells her this just isn’t the way. She hesitates, influenced by Bond’s buffoonery, and Kristatos draws a knife. Then Columbo, fucking Columbo, the guy absolutely everyone has forgotten at this point, gets to save the day and kill Kristatos by shooting him in the back. Right in front of Havelock. The orphan. The vengeful assassin. The ruthless huntress who had gone halfway around the world to unleash hell upon those who had wronged her. The guy who was responsible for the obliteration of her parents is killed by a completely ancillary character RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER, and she was denied the vengeance that was undeniably hers by right of blood and grief because James fucking Bond had to mansplain morality to her two hours after dropping a crippled man down a smokestack and then making a pun about it.

Bond throws the ATAC off a cliff instead of letting the KGB have it. The KGB leave. Bond and Havelock fuck on a boat. Margaret Thatcher talks to the parrot.

The End

~~~~~

I’ve got to say, I’m pretty damn mad right now. This had the potential to be an absolutely amazing movie. The look of righteous fury in Havelock’s eyes as she stood over the bodies of her murdered parents honestly gave me chills. She shot an assassin with an arrow and drove in a high speed chase like a badass. Then Bond came into her story and she was completely declawed. Bond gets revenge on Blofeld for killing Tracy. Bond gets revenge on some dude whose name I can’t even remember for killing Ferrara. But Havelock? No, Havelock doesn’t get revenge. Havelock isn’t allowed to avenge the deaths of her mother and father. And then, as if that weren’t enough, we’re slapped in the face by Columbo being the one to kill Kristatos. If Kristatos was going to die, why the FUCK couldn’t Havelock be the one to kill him? I’ve been confused and frustrated by parts of these movies in the past, but never, in 12 whole films, have I felt this genuinely furious. The writers of this movie took a character like Havelock, who could have been an absolute badass angel of wrath on a holy quest for vengeance, who could have been an equal to Bond and could have elevated him to his best, who could have delivered an incredibly powerful and satisfying story, and then they took a big dump right on her face.

That’s not even taking into account the other things about this movie that suck. The music, aside from the titular song, isn’t good. Why is that ice skater in the movie at all? Why did we need to go through fifty different dudes to get to Kristatos and Columbo? This movie is a mess, and I’m very angry about it.

I give For Your Eyes Only QQ on the Five Q Scale.

It’s the final countdown! Before I post my next James Bond recap, Eli will have posted his recaps of both “Home Again Rose” and “One Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest”, the penultimate and final episodes of The Golden Girls, respectively. We’ve still got a whole season of The Golden Palace to cover, but this will still be a monumental achievement on Eli’s part and I can’t believe it’s come so soon! You’ve done my Golden Girls-loving heart proud, Chief! I can’t wait to read those final recaps, and then after that (and after I’ve wiped a tear or two from my eyes) I’ll be back with my recap of the James Bond film with arguably the most famous name, Octopussy.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for nerfing and thank you for being One of Us!

#One of us #007 #james bond

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