Roger Moore Was ‘Horrified” By His Least Favorite James Bond Movie

James Bond might be one of cinema’s most celebrated heroes, but he’s not been without his share of missteps. 007 has now been a staple of pop culture for more than 60 years, ever since 1962’s “Dr. No” kicked off cinema’s most enduring franchise. But maintaining unwavering quality throughout the decades was always going to be a tall order, even for England’s greatest spy. As such, we’ve seen Bond endure some truly abject moments throughout the decades.

According to IMDb, the worst James Bond movie is “Die Another Day.” Pierce Brosnan’s swan song as 007 is perpetually vilified for its outright silliness, featuring as it does a central villain who transforms from a Korean general to an insufferable British character. But others might well argue that Daniel Craig’s tenure in the tux was an astounding demonstration of diminishing returns, ending with Craig’s supposedly grounded spy being wiped out in a missile strike in “No Time to Die.”

Meanwhile, the Roger Moore era remains a somewhat divisive section of Bond history, with some celebrating the films’ more light-hearted approach to the source material, and others writing off the movies as campy nonsense. This was, of course, the era that saw Bond riding floating gondolas while literal pigeons did double-takes. But if you ask the man himself, Moore would say the worst of his run had nothing to do with silliness of this sort, and was actually a fairly horrifying experience for the veteran Bond star.

/Film’s own ranking of the best and worst James Bond movies names “Die Another Day” as the worst of the bunch. But not far behind is 1985’s “View to a Kill,” which saw a 57-year-old Roger Moore in the title role, making him the oldest James Bond in the saga’s history even today. Unfortunately, the film around him makes no attempt to grapple with the fact its protagonist is aging so significantly, and has Moore running around as if he were the sprightly spy that debuted in 1973’s “Live and Let Die.” The movie also features Christopher Walken as Max Zorin, a villain intent on flooding Silicon Valley, while Grace Jones plays Zorrin’s henchwoman May Day — a role Jones played at the age of 37, and one which required her character to sleep with Moore’s almost 60-year-old Bond.

It should perhaps come as no surprise, then, that “A View to a Kill” remains Roger Moore’s least favorite Bond movie. But his distaste for his final outing as 007 isn’t tied to any of the usual criticisms levelled at his run of films as being too silly or campy. The actor spoke about his thoughts on the film in 1996 (as recalled in the book “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: The Unofficial James Bond Film Companion”) saying, he was “horrified” making “A View to a Kill.” It seems the main issue for Moore was the film’s violence, with the actor adding:

“Whole slews of sequences where Christopher Walken was machine- gunning hundreds of people. I said ‘That wasn’t Bond, those weren’t Bond films.’ It stopped being what they were about. You didn’t dwell on the blood and the brains spewing all over the place.'”

Roger Moore has spoken on several occasions about his distaste for “A View to a Kill.” On the DVD commentary for the film, the veteran star reiterated his revulsion at the violence in the film and claimed that he was tired of playing Bond at that point. In fact, he’d started feeling a bit weary with the franchise while shooting the previous entry, 1983’s “Octopussy.” By the time he came to a “View to a Kill,” then, he was more than ready to retire, clearing the way for Timothy Dalton’s underappreciated Bond to debut in 1987’s “The Living Daylights.”

Interestingly enough, Moore’s lack of comfort with the violence in “A View to a Kill” is likely an extension of his general disdain for guns. In his 2008 memoir “My Word is My Bond,” (via The Express) Moore recalled how he developed a phobia of firearms while carrying out National Service. What’s more, in the commentary track for “A View To A Kill,” he explained how, during a refresher weapons training course for the Bond films, a gun blew up while he was holding it, deafening him “for a few days.”

All of which seemed to add to the actor’s general aversion to guns and violence — something that “A View to a Kill” wholeheartedly embraced. Still, it’s amazing the late actor, who passed away in 2017, was able to make a full seven Bond movies while harboring antipathy for guns.