Roger Moore was 53 years old when he made this James Bond movie, and he would do two more yet. But his age was showing here. Not so much in his face, but in his overall slower movements. Indeed, the script has much less physical stuff than one is used to in the 007 series. "For Your Eyes Only" is a slower film all around. It doesn't have the frenzy of a car or boat chase, or other fast actions segments. The one car chase scene with Bond in a Citroen is more funny than nail-biting. The opening has a slightly harrowing scenario with a helicopter, and there is a chase on skis. It seems that the writers have dumbed Bond down a bit as well. By that I mean, Moore doesn't show the usual savvy alertness and watchfulness. An example is when Bond climbs the monolith that St. Cyril's Monastery caps. As he reaches the top he doesn't look around to see where the guards may be. Instead he's looking down and gets caught by surprise by a guard. Bond doesn't have any new gadgets to help him out of tough spots. In all of the earlier scenes with the bad guys, Bond gets beat or chased and he never gets the upper hand. Definitely not the normal routine of James Bond. This film must have had different playwrights. The dialog was rather droll at times and it was missing the peppy and frequent witty lines that one has come to expect in the Bond films.The rest of the cast are okay, but again, it's a slow film. The song for this episode in the series is particularly good, and it did receive an Academy Award nomination. The scenery in the Eastern Mediterranean especially is beautiful.

For the twelfth installment of the James Bond franchise (and Roger Moore's fifth turn in the lead role), the decision was made to, (aside from the cold opening) return the series to a more grounded and series route with focus on intrigue over gimmickry. And the results are mostly pretty successful. What we have here is Bond being sent on a mission to infiltrate the Greek underworld in order to locate and recover a missile command system, a task that also sees him getting caught up in an interlinked revenge plot. Revenge is actually a main theme throughout, and I liked it. Our main Bond girl is on a quest to avenge the deaths of her parents, and the cold opening sees Bond get vengeance on longtime arch nemesis Blofeld for good, though, due to legal reasons, he isn't called that. It's still obvious that's who it is though. I did enjoy this film, but I will be honest and say that it is a tad slow and times, and that it often feels dragged out and longer than the running time suggests. I appreciated that they toned down the camp, but aside from a few decently staged action sequences (the diving and fortress assault scenes especially) this one isn't really all that memorable, and the main villain is also not all that noteworthy or memorable. All in all though, this is one of Moore's better films, and I'd place it in the upper middle of his era when it comes to rankings.

Not the typical Moore era film. After "Moonraker" the direction taken was more serious and realistic. "For Your Eyes Only" takes a lot of queues from "OHMSS" and I quite enjoyed it. It drags a bit, and surely it could have benefited from a shorter running-time but it still makes for a pleasant watch. Moore is really at ease in the character at this point, and you can see that he's just having such a good time playing Bond. The very well crafted action set-pieces make up for the somewhat thin plot and its interesting to see how the franchise constantly evolved, entry after entry, technically wise in order to remain fresh and appealing. Although not anywhere near greatness when comes to acting, Carole Bouquet still makes for a compelling Bond Girl. The all around cast is quite a good ensemble."For Your Eyes Only" is one of the better Moore films and still holds up as a good action piece up to this day.

Was recently catching up on some James Bond movies available on Amazon Prime before they got yanked off. One of the ones I caught that I hadn't seen in a while was For Your Eyes Only. I fell asleep during one of the ski scenes. While watching it I had a thought. Roger Moore played the role of James Bond the Longest--well I guess he's technically tied with Connery because Connery did the unofficial one in 1983, but still the guy did a lot of Bond movies. A couple of questions came to mind--how was Moore able to make so many and how did James Bond survive the 1970's and early to mid 1980's? From Connery's last awful "Diamonds Are Forever" to Moonraker finishing Moore's career in the mid '80's with A View To a Kill. For Your Eyes Only probably represents the best of Moore's 1980's films. Dang though he was old by this time. It's one thing to have an old Indiana Jones or Han Solo, but James Bond was never meant to be an old timer and even if Moore was in pretty good shape he was still old. They should have changed him out at that time with Timothy Dalton. Moore's Bond movies were two cheesy and again his age got in the way. The best of his films were probably The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die was okay. Also, too many of his movies had ski chase scenes on the snow and For Your Eyes Only probably represented the longest ski chase scene and it was pretty boring. Moore should have never been selected anyway based on age. He was in his mid 40's by the time he did his first Bond movie. All other actors who have played Bond were younger. Well, despite the Moore years, James Bond survived. Looks like someone may be taking over for Daniel Craig now.