10 Times James Bond Films Were Better Than The Books

10. From A View To A Kill

The short story collection For Your Eyes Only was a series of mini-adventures for Bond, and are probably the low point of the series, save for The Spy Who Loved Me. Technically any of the short stories whose titles were later used for the Bond films could be included on this list like Quantum of Solace from the first collection, or The Living Daylights from the second and final collection.

For now though, let’s look at From A View to a Kill.

Say what you will about the quality of the film with its rip-off of Goldfinger’s plot and Roger Moore too old to be believable in the role as 007, but the camp from the Paris car chase to the wonderful performances of Christopher Walken and Grace Jones as Max Zorin and May Day respectively mean that the book inevitably pales in comparison to the film.

Instead the plot, already cursed to be barebones being one part of a short story collection, sees Bond go undercover as a motorcyclist courier in France to lure out an assassin. He succeeds. That’s it. Not exactly as gripping as the pet project of a Nazi scientist causing a double earthquake to flatten Silicon Valley, is it?