The Living Daylights in Review

Confused plot and digressive globetrotting notwithstanding, the best Bond in years. A radical rethink on 007 accommodates the new man; Timothy Dalton brings a positive emotional commitment to tight spots and courtship, and emerges as a Buchanite romantic hero. The pre-credits sequence on the Rock of Gibraltar grips like wet rope; the murderous milkman's raid on HQ is a chiller; the final shoot-out with Joe Don Baker's arms dealer amid toy soldiers and model battlefields is a fruitful metaphor. Lethal gizmos and digital countdowns are kept to the minimum, which leaves more room for the acting.

On the debit side, in place of the usually globally ambitious mastermind, the writers have given us a couple of seedy dealers who keep moving the goalposts: arms, drugs, diamonds. That and unmemorable events in Afghanistan apart, enjoy.

(TimeOut)

Timothy Dalton debuts in The Living Daylights. Write your review here.

The Living Daylights (1987) - 8.5/10
For a long time, I had thought of The Living Daylights as routine and rather bland, but this recent viewing has proven how wrong I was. Daylights is a well paced film; just when you start to think the movie is slowing down, something else happens to jolt you back into the action. Speaking of the action, some of the best action pieces are featured in this film, with my favorite being the thrilling and unique cargo net fight. And then there is Timothy Dalton, who gives a strong first performance as James Bond. Dalton is good on the dramatics, adding some dark elements that Moore never had. And while Dalton balks an occasional throw away one liner, the rest of his performance makes up for it. Just the presence of a younger Bond in Dalton (as compared to his predecessor) adds energy that some of the later Moore entries (especially A View to a Kill) were missing. Then there is the rest of the cast, who are all strong (minus John Terry as Felix Leiter). Even the villains, who I thought I had a dislike of, work out fairly well. The plot jumps around a bit and remains low key throughout, but is not meaningless (like The Man with the Golden Gun) and not inane (As I had once thought). The one scene that has always irked me and perhaps prevents Daylights from being a spot higher on this list is that cello case sled scene. It has never sat with me right; I always thought it was a hangover from a Moore film. Apart from that slip, The Living Daylights is a superior, underrated Bond film that owes much of it’s strong suits to Mr. Timothy Dalton.

^ That's a good little write-up on my favourite Bond film there.

Had to sneak it in

Haha, I had seen stills from that, but never the whole scene.

It's so Roger Moore era Dalton looks ridiculous with it, bless his heart....

A magic carpet ride with an Arabian variation of Cheech and Chong.

The Time Out blurb is pretty accurate, although I really do like the Afghanistan scenes. Kamran Shah may be the most underrated ally in the series. And you've gotta love the Soviet gaoler with the heavy Scots accent.

Watching it now on the telly - post jail escape, for about 10 minutes the film becomes all about John Barry. His Mujahaddin and Opium track is my fave of his post-OHMSS work and lifts a relatively maudlin sequence with the Mujahaddin into something majestic.

And then of course the gimmicky airbase raid starts and we're back in the room, but its 10 fantastic minutes.

After The Living Daylights again, I think it's one of the lesser Bond movies for me.  Not sure if I would put it in my bottom 5, but close.

The problem for me is that Bond and Kara have no chemistry at all.  Bond is a coldblooded spy/assassin, especially the way Dalton plays him, and Kara is such a happy naive school girl, and plays the role, like a Cinderella type.  Not that there is anything wrong with this necessarily but I think it would have worked a lot better for Moore's Bond.

I did some research and read that the script was originally intended for Moore, which would have made more sense.  But I feel that the way John Glen had D'Abo play it, just didn't work.  Why would this Bond feel romantically interested in this school girl type?

Bond is also annoyed by her a lot of the time, like the way she goes back for the violin, or the way she thinks they are free in the Soviet base, and Bond feels annoyed having to correct her, or the way he gets annoyed with her, not being able to drive into the plane, or operate the plane, etc.

He just seems annoyed with her most of the time, so because of this, the romance scenes feel forced and don't work for me. I also found the ending to not make much sense. Kara is upset that Bond didn't come to her show and then finds out he was hiding in a room upstairs? Why was Bond hiding this whole time? There was no reason for him to be and it just felt like a useless last surprise that the audience doesn't need.

I also felt Brad Whitaker and Koskov were kind of lame villains, and Whitaker's average war museum, is by far the least interesting of all the Bond villain layers.  Necros is also the most bland of all the Red Grant copycats.

I disagree. Dalton and d'Abo have great chemistry on screen, and the development of their relationship feels a lot more organic than most others in the series, including Bond and Vesper and Bond and Madeleine (I include these because we're supposed to believe Bond falls madly in love with these women, but it's more laughable than anything else). Of course Bond would feel annoyed that they have to waste precious time on a cello when local authorities and the KGB are after him and Kara. As for being 'free' in the Soviet base, he's more amused by her naivety/romanticism than anything else. And as for the ending, I'm assuming Bond arrived late to the performance, and was deliberately avoiding M and Gogol. 

I prefer Koskov to Whitaker (despite the excellent idea of having Whitaker dress himself up as different "surgeons"), but again, against the pantheon of great Bond villains, such as Klebb, Goldfinger, Zorin and Carver, Koskov ends up being more middle of the road. But he's a worthy addition to the series, Krabbé's performance is rather good.

Oh okay.  Maybe I need to watch the romance again. I might agree that she is better than Madeleine though.

I like Koskov better than Whitaker too, but still don't like Koskov overall cause I just found him unmemorable without bringing anything significant to the table much I guess.

Watched last night.

Maryam d'Abo is, to my mind, one of the least sexy leading Bond girls--too dam' skinny for one--but gives one of the very best acting jobs.

Also, TLD's musical suite--title track, score, concluding track--may be the best in all of Bond. It's a great film to listen to.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Also, TLD's musical suite--title track, score, concluding track--may be the best in all of Bond. It's a great film to listen to.

I would be inclined to agree.

Gotta hand it to Barry for going out on a high after 25 years.

CJB wrote:

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Also, TLD's musical suite--title track, score, concluding track--may be the best in all of Bond. It's a great film to listen to.

I would be inclined to agree.

Gotta hand it to Barry for going out on a high after 25 years.

An all-time high, one might say...

Quite right.

AVTAK is right up there as well. Barry didn't miss a beat, pardon the pun, as he closed off his time on Bond.