How A View To A Kill’s Max Zorin Parodied Bond Villains

A View to A Kill isn’t the most-loved James Bond movie, but the 1985 007 outing did effectively spoof the franchise’s villain conventions in its main antagonist Max Zorin. James Bond is soon to celebrate his twenty-fifth screen outing in the form of the long-delayed movie No Time To Die and, by all accounts, this final film from Daniel Craig’s darker, Bourne Identity-influenced iteration of James Bond will subvert all manner of expectations that franchise fans have for the suave super-spy (although Cary Fukunaga’s original No Time To Die twist would have truly upended the series if kept in the movie).

However, earlier James Bond movies did make some admirable attempts at parodying the familiar story beats and more corny conventions of the spy’s adventures. For example, the Pierce Brosnan outing The World Is Not Enough originally featured an ending that would have seen the 007 series confront the dark reality of Bond’s many duplicitous love interests.

While that particular slice of subversion never made it to cinema screens, another earlier James Bond outing took parodic aim at the goofy villains of the franchise. The final James Bond film from Roger Moore, 1985’s A View To A Kill, featured a typically silly villain with a megalomaniacal plan and bizarre backstory in the form of Max Zorin, Christopher Walken’s Bond villain (David Bowie was originally slated to play the role). Zorin is a perfect parody of typical Bond villains, as his wild backstory and endless disloyalty are what end up foiling his plan almost more than Bond’s own intervention. Zorin shares these attributes with most franchise villains, but he’s one of few 007 villains who suffer due to them.

Bond’s villains tend to be somewhat ludicrous figures with outlandish plans, and their campy theatrics are part of what makes the franchise enduringly appealing. However, Zorin proved an effective parody of these tropes as A View To A Kill gives his ridiculous decisions realistic consequences and sees the villain constantly contribute to his eventual downfall. Like most James Bond villains he is ruthless, willing to kill dozens of his own workers even though they haven’t betrayed him and selling out his love interest at a moment’s notice. Unlike most earlier antagonists, though, this comes back to bite him when said love interest allies with Bond and betrays him right back. Similarly, like Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Bond’s arch-nemesis, Zorin has a shady past, with him being the product of Nazi genetic experimentation and raised by the KGB.

However, unlike earlier James Bond villains, this has left him realistically unhinged and renders his behavior dangerously erratic, thus resulting in his inevitable downfall. Giving realistic results to such an otherwise over-the-top villain’s actions makes A View To A Kill a solid self-parody of Bond’s more ridiculous villains, and Zorin ends up being a note-perfect spoof of the franchise’s sillier side years before the Brosnan Bond movies leaned into self-referential humor. However, while Moore’s James Bond was known for his campier edge, not every villain actor saw the funny side of these 007 outings. For example, the late Yaphet Kotto hated his James Bond villain Kananga due to the racist roots of the character’s portrayal.