The Living Daylights (1987) & License to Kill (1989)

Pompous Thomas Presents: A Timothy Dalton/James Bond Double Review

In my review of The American, I ragged on Timothy Dalton, lumping him with faux-James Bonds Austin Powers and Vin Diesel's XXX. This was a cheap shot and I apologize. When I wrote that, I had only seen parts of one of his Bond Movies. It's not that I am averse to the lesser Bond actors. After all, my favorite Bond movie is On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the only Bond to star this kilt-wearing weirdo:

When you get right down to it, I actually really like Dalton. Well, he was so great in Hot Fuzz that I'll give him a lifetime pass. So, in the interest of sharing and learning and growing here's a pair of reviews of Dalton's twin Bond movies: The Living Daylights and License to Kill

The Living Daylights
The Living Daylights is a mostly bad movie. It's about as good as A View to a Kill, the crappy Roger Moore movie that preceded it, but where Moore played the part with effortlessness that comes from playing a part for about 15 years, Dalton is awkward as Bond. He doesn't have the charm and he almost seems too smart. He has no chemistry with his cello-playing Soviet assassin/lover, but he does well in the action sequences, especially a fight scene set on and behind a cargo plane.

The plot is mostly garbage; something about Russians and American Arms dealers and I really don't know what else. The Mujaheddin show up towards the end and help Bond out a bit, so this might make a good "White guys help out the Mujaheddin" double feature with Rambo 3. The bit in the middle where Bond and Bondgirl sled down a mountain in a cello case is probably a low point for the entire series, easily eclipsing the moon buggy chase in Diamonds are Forever.

License to Kill
This is much better. The plot is still silly, but so packed to the gills with shark attacks, eel attacks, weddings, semi trucks, golf carts, iguanas, skydiving and Wayne Newton that you don't have time to notice. Bond is written to better suit Dalton's strengths; a bit harder and meaner than before, but he still doesn't have much chemistry with either of the female leads. Bond's quartermaster, Q, has a larger role in this movie than ever before or after, including a scene where he wears a fake mustache and a real sombero. This alone makes the movie worth seeing. The chase scene at the finale is excellent and is up there with The Road Warrior for best pre-CGI chase scenes involving semi trucks.

Cost/Benefit Analysis: These are on Netflix, but are disc-only, so the only cost (other than subscription fees) was the time it took for the mailman to bring my my movies. Totally worth it! ...for License to Kill. I would even take the time to leave my house, drive in my car to a rental place and pay actual dollars for that movie (If I lived in a world where netflix didn't exist). I wouldn't go that far for The Living Daylights though. It's only worth the time of a Bond completionist or the truly bored.

Fun Notes: In The Living Daylights Joe Don Baker plays a character that is probably the bad guy (since he's the last to die), and then he play's Bond's CIA friend with the busted Beetle in Goldeneye! I don't know if that's actually a fun fact or not, but I always thought it was weird.