Time: 128 Minutes
Studio: MGM Fox
Rating: PG
SRP: $34.98

Feature: B+

In the final decade of the Cold War, For Your Eyes Only fed off the global threat of the Russians. Sent to retrieve a communication device that went down in a sunken ship, Bond teams up with Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) and comes face to face with Aristotle Kristatos (Julian Glover) and Milos Columbo (Topol) both of whom claim to be Bond’s ally but are not all what they seem to be. Faintly familiar to From Russia With Love, the twelfth Bond film is a cross between a who’s who and a race to an important piece of the nuclear arms race.

Yet another transition in the Bond franchise, this time the film tones the story down from it’s predecessor, Moonraker which was an exercise in excess filmmaking (an ongoing recurring cycle). The basic 007 plot is simple: Put Bond on a mission on an exotic locale, throw some women, an eccentric villain or two, and lots of action. How productions continue to try something different I’ll never know. If it ain’t broke, don’t make Moonraker. Wisely, director John Glen, and writers, Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson followed the formula giving us a grittier, more dangerous James Bond instead of letting it become an out of control spectacle. (See Die Another Day)

PRESENTATION: B+

The packaging is a standard case in a cardboard slipcase. There are two stickers that cover the slipcase, one of which is a promotion for e-Movie Cash towards the new Quantum of Solace film. The problem though is when you pull the label off to reveal the redemption code, part of the ink of the code and the adhesive stays behind. I wound up using the the adhesive of the other sticker to clean up the case, a tedious and unnecessary annoyance.

As in all of the newer James Bond releases, the same menu design is carried through with a modern and sleek appearance. A spiraling gun barrel frames the screen as silhouettes of shapely women and clips scroll by. The navigation has a spy theme with choices like “Language Decryption” for “Audio”, and “Initiate Mission” for “Play.” Moving within each selection like the extras can be a little cumbersome moving up and down and then to the left to get out of that nav bar, and “Play All” is only an option that shows up some of the time. Once you’ve viewed a special it automatically moves down the menu when your natural instinct is to move to the next selection. Another awkward default is that in the commentary selections it starts at the last track and you have to move up to see the rest. White Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.

AUDIO: A

The action comes alive in this 5.1 DTS-HD lossless audio track. Compared to this first wave of Bond blu-rays it’s only bested by Die Another Day which was made twenty years later. Lots of spraying gunfire to travel through the room, Sheena Easton belting out the theme song, and an accurate dialogue track make this a job well-done. Also available are the 2.0 Dolby Stereo and Spanish Mono tracks and a 5.1 Dolby Digital French track.

VIDEO: A

A big part of the Bond mystique is the distant locations that could only be accessed by 007 himself. In 1080p, these desirable destinations look even better. Texture and the fine granules of sand and snow can be picked up by the eye easily. The Swiss alps glisten and the Bahamas look lush with paradise. The transfer is AVC MPEG-4 encoded and is in 2.35:1 and even though there was was probably less done by Lowry restoration as the Connery Bond films, the picture is clean of artificial noise and wear-and-tear defects.

EXTRAS: A

Like all of the Bond blu-rays, they’ve transplanted all of the extras from the recent DVD releases. They are in standard definition, widescreen and 2.0 Dolby Stereo. Each of these Bond films have a different degree of strength concerning the extras. Some have a literal vault archival footage, which can be nice, but also can be dull. Others have short but insightful featurettes that add a deeper appreciation to the film. Similar to the Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only’s strength is in the commentaries.

Also boasting three commentaries, John Cork of the Ian Fleming Foundation returns yet again with all of his 007 wisdom in the best of the bunch with excerpts from director, John Glen and members of the cast. Roger Moore does another one of his shooting from the hip solo tracks, and the co-screenwriter, Michael Wilson and the production crew team up for the third track with lots to say about the logistics of putting together a Bond film.

Director John Glen introduces Two Deleted Scenes where there’s a much longer hockey fight scene (2:05) a conversation between Bond and Melina that took away from her personality. The underused angle button gets some action by being able to see the Death of Loque scene from two different camera angles. Michael Wilson narrates a handful of small featurettes about filming at the exotic locations. Bond in Greece (5:58) and Bond in Cortina (4:17) showed how the 1980 Winter Olympics influenced the film’s snowy setting shooting in the Alps. Neptune’s Journey (1:39) talks about how the great set designer, Peter Lamont put the underwater scenes together in the Bahamas and what happened to that Neptune sub after filming. Looking Inside for Your Own Eyes Only (29:48), you’ll take deeper looks into casting choices, the rock climbing scene, the helicopter stunt, filming underwater and action on the slopes with figure skater, Lynn Holly-Johnson. Two Animated Storyboard Sequences show montage compare the drawings for the snowmobile chase (1:14) and underwater sequences (1:46) with their film counterparts.

007 Mission Control is the throw-away extra which allows users to access all of the major elements of film strung together in different branches: opening credits, women, allies, villains, mission combat manual, Q branch, and exotic location. The best purpose I see for this is to showcase the action scenes for reference material or to pull out the great Maurice Binder credits.

Sheena Easton’s Video (2:46) for For Your Eyes Only, In the “Ministry of Propaganda” one theatrical trailer (3:49), three TV spots (11:46) and two radio commercials (1:11). One observation worth noting is that nudity is seen in the theatrical trailer, all the TV spots, and music video. An extensive gallery full of promotional and behind-the-scenes images closes out the extras.

FOR BOND FANS ONLY – OVERALL SHOCK VALUE: B+

A welcomed return to Earth, For Your Eyes Only went back to the fundamentals in both tone and story. Moore has another solid turn as Bond, and the supporting cast was reassembled to please 007 fans. With aggressive Bond girls, wild action sequences and all of the solid extras brought over from DVD, this is one of the twenty plus Bond films you can bring home confidently. With the power boost in the DTS-HD track and visual delight of HD, this is the best way you can watch this film.