In science fiction there is a sub-genre known as the "super science story", wherein new technology appears that fundamentally changes how the world works. In this movie, spy characters are given devices that allow them to instantaneously travel anywhere in the world and even to any moment in time! Just thinking of the possibilities of such power as applied to the spy game is dizziness-inducing, and yet in this movie the devices simply function as a get out of jail free card for whenever the script gets into a tough corner.
The fact that Donald Woods and Jeffery Hunter, the supposed big brains in America's top spy agency have not (or cannot) use such tech to jam up her Cold War enemies on an epic scale shows just how little thought went into this aspect of the story. The movie plays like an episode of To Catch a Thief but with a cheat code. One suspects that the creators wanted a gimmick to distinguish themselves from the tidal wave of James Bond knock-offs that followed after Goldfinger, but lacked the courage to take this key story device to its logical end point. As if they wanted to be different, but not that different. There is a short scene in the early part of the film in which Jeffery Hunter tests the device by carrying out a series of re-does to repair a botched mission, yet fails to take a similar approach to the main mission! The picture has a deus ex machina device on tap but wants to pretend it does not, not really...
This is the key failing of the film, and it dwarfs all other considerations. Jeffery Hunter and France Nguyen make an attractive pair of principals, and their scripted banter, while nothing special, passes the time acceptably; the production values seem adequate, albeit well below the Goldfinger standard; the stakes are high, with the main story concerned with thwarting a nuclear detonation within Los Angeles. Okay, supposed super spy Hunter has to be bailed out multiple times by junior partner Nguyen, which makes him look like a bit of a boob, but slightly different handling could have turned this into a fun running gag. There are elements here to like. And none of that matters, since the viewer has a leisurely 95 or so minutes between the credit sequences to contemplate just what a single field agent with TIME TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY could do! Looting every secret file in Moscow and Beijing would be child's play. Mike Hammer in Complex 90, if given such gadgetry, would have ended the Cold War in about three days. Such a ridiculously potent story device either has to be employed fully, which would radically alter the rules of the spy game (and thus, the spy thriller) or left out. Using it by half measures makes the characters seem not very clever or competent, and the writers seem unimaginative and cowardly.
The viewer is left with the inescapable feeling that a better thought out version of this idea should be possible. But what we get here just is not it. What a pity.
The fact that Donald Woods and Jeffery Hunter, the supposed big brains in America's top spy agency have not (or cannot) use such tech to jam up her Cold War enemies on an epic scale shows just how little thought went into this aspect of the story. The movie plays like an episode of To Catch a Thief but with a cheat code. One suspects that the creators wanted a gimmick to distinguish themselves from the tidal wave of James Bond knock-offs that followed after Goldfinger, but lacked the courage to take this key story device to its logical end point. As if they wanted to be different, but not that different. There is a short scene in the early part of the film in which Jeffery Hunter tests the device by carrying out a series of re-does to repair a botched mission, yet fails to take a similar approach to the main mission! The picture has a deus ex machina device on tap but wants to pretend it does not, not really...
This is the key failing of the film, and it dwarfs all other considerations. Jeffery Hunter and France Nguyen make an attractive pair of principals, and their scripted banter, while nothing special, passes the time acceptably; the production values seem adequate, albeit well below the Goldfinger standard; the stakes are high, with the main story concerned with thwarting a nuclear detonation within Los Angeles. Okay, supposed super spy Hunter has to be bailed out multiple times by junior partner Nguyen, which makes him look like a bit of a boob, but slightly different handling could have turned this into a fun running gag. There are elements here to like. And none of that matters, since the viewer has a leisurely 95 or so minutes between the credit sequences to contemplate just what a single field agent with TIME TRAVEL TECHNOLOGY could do! Looting every secret file in Moscow and Beijing would be child's play. Mike Hammer in Complex 90, if given such gadgetry, would have ended the Cold War in about three days. Such a ridiculously potent story device either has to be employed fully, which would radically alter the rules of the spy game (and thus, the spy thriller) or left out. Using it by half measures makes the characters seem not very clever or competent, and the writers seem unimaginative and cowardly.
The viewer is left with the inescapable feeling that a better thought out version of this idea should be possible. But what we get here just is not it. What a pity.