One of the, if not *the*, most out of place sounds/music in any James Bond movie has to go to the use of the song “California Girls” from the “snowboard” scene from the opening sequence of A View To A Kill (1985). Yes, I get that Bond eventually travels to California (and meets girls there I guess?) in the movie and he is technically snowboarding with the snowmobile blade (which is like “California surfing” I guess?), but I’m still going to give the song choice a thumbs down.
I may have approved if the song chosen was the original version by the Beach Boys, but a quick Google also shows this is a cover by Gidea Park, and it sounds like an average one at that. They should have scrapped the idea. How Bond maintains his feet on the blade and gains enough momentum to surprise the skiing bad guys was puzzling enough for the chase, let alone the song choice. It’s fun for sure, but not particularly great.
I was also unfortunately reminded of this scene after watching Pierce Brosnan’s Bond’s absurd snowboarding/gliding scene from Die Another Day (2002):
*shudders*
I may be biased since TND was the first James Bond movie I saw in theaters, but the remote control BMW scene is nothing but fun from start to finish. I distinctly remember smiling ear-to-ear just as Brosnan does at the end of the scene, and the theater’s collective ooh’s and aah’s as each new gadget appeared on screen. This was nothing short of action movie magic, and is a top-tier action scene in all of the James Bond movies. Who wouldn’t want to drive a car (BMW, nonetheless) remotely and look as cool as James Bond doing it?!
James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) swaps hands with his Walther P99 in Die Another Day (2002)
James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) perilously hangs by a rope in the opening sequence of The World Is Not Enough (1999)
