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licence to kill: best bond film ever????
I honestly thought this was great. People love quantum of solace and casino royale for Bond being more human, well in this he was extremely human. I saw quantum as a Bourne version of licence. I wish Dalton had done more films, he was (IMHO) the greatest bond. followed by Connery, then Craig and Brosnan in a tie, then Moore, and finally, poor old Lasenby.
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What I mean is, Daylights was a breath of fresh air from the recent past of Moore hamming it up and Bond became serious again, the teaser on Gibraltar could this time be taking seriously, with regards to the cringeworthy piece of Moore doing skiing stunts to awful 1960's tunes in the previous outing.
But Daylights, while serious and Dalton with it, seemed to drag on in parts, it all got a bit technical at some stages, and sometimes I found the desert scenes somewhat drawn out and uninspiring and parts of when they were in Central Europe, but it seems all what Fleming intended and Dalton fitted into the picture perfectly, even in the unlikely event that Moore had done one final effort or Brosnan had even played the role that year I don't think it would of worked and Dalton was the final piece of the Daylights jigsaw.
License to Kill is what they're talking about there, so
been over this before, but in any event,
definitely the most brutal Bond release before Craig took the role, maybe still is to some extent, we saw things back in 1989 that at the time, were unheard of in Bond movies, such as graphic shark assaults, exploding heads, inpaled on a fork lift truck etc, and uses of profanity never yet heard before to the greater extent, it all seemed a bit much too soon after the previous entries phlegmatic approach and even recent Moore's lame duck approach, Bond got serious awful quick but the viewing public as a whole either weren't ready or welcomed this avenue and the film is generally looked upon as one of the weaker entries in the Bond franchise.
Gladys Knight does OK with the tunes, there is a very good henchman in a young Benicio Del Toro but apart from Sanchez, the other bad guys are a major let down.
Everett McGill, who actually played a very menacing nasty in Under Siege II, did not amount to much as the turncoat agent Ed Killifer and you wouldn't even have known he was on screen even it was for a limited time.
The ending is a bit sickly, everything turns out nice as we have a little party (at the Sanchez residence, odd venue), and Bond from a walking wounded and seconds from death, is back in black tie and evening wear and like nothing happened for the past two hours, hair immaculate, and jumps over a ledge to surprise a moping Carey Lowell.
winking fish just for good measure and cue the Lethal Weapon II style (End) credits.
Both Films were released in theaters about the same time incidentally.
all said, Dalton for me is the Best Bond but LTK is the weaker of his two efforts.
Said it before, real shame we never got to see Tim in another Bond feature, he only finally stepped down from the role a year before Goldeneye was even released.
LTK is definitley in my top ten as I feel the tone of the film suits Dalton perfectly and he carries it very well, it certainly would have interesting to see how they would have followed it with another Dalton film, I personally prefer LTK to Casino Roayle or QOS.
LTK is #8 on my list and TLD is #21 as it stands.
As for Dalton,i would put him as 5th best,just above Lazenby.
TLD - is a modern Bond classic.
LTK - is where DC and Eon have gone for their spiritual heritage and it is a another modern Bond classic. One of the best villians we've had. Great story, fab Bond stunts, the first modern Bond girl and we had a dippy one too for good measure, what more do you want? Dalton, I feel was just getting into it.
As for the best Bond film, you can't get past SC's efforts. But Dalton is up there with LTK.
Second best Bond and that's the law.
I defy anyone to watch Majesty's and Kill back to back and come out saying the latter is the better film. True Dalt is a better actor than Laz BUT the film has characters that could have quite easily come out of any other contemporary film (Sanchez, Dario, Sharkey, Killifer and Truman Lodge for instance).
Some of the dialogue is awkwardly out of place for a Bond movie:
"I don't like it you can finger me"
"Chainsaw my ass"
"watch the birdie you bastard"
Can anyone really imagine Fleming writing dialogue like that?
Also, why would Bond resign from the service go rogue for a man he only worked with once in the previous 15 years when he didn't do that for his wife?
I like LTK but the tone is awkward. Dalton does what he can with the part though.
More likely they looked at LTK as the film that nearly sunk the franchise. Glen's direction is pedestrian at best.
Yes, great villain, great stunts and I did like the girl (Lowell, not Soto). First modern Bond girl? It could be argued that Honey was pretty independent minded, Pussy was a born leader, Aki was one of Tiger's top agents etc etc.
Who is the best Bond? Each to his own.
Bad dialogue is across the board.
My point wasn't that the dialogue in LTK was bad, more that it sounded more "American thriller" than James Bond.
(I do like the "cunning linguist" line in a kind of "guilty pleasure" way though. SB says it with a real relish that makes me smirk everytime I hear it).
Fleming wasn't immune to smut either. After all it was him who came up with the Pussy Galore name.
As for the comparisons, LTK is nothing like QOS. QOS had ideas of being artsy farsty, but just could not get away from being the kind of action movie that even Steven Seagall would turn down. With LTK, Dalton took the series in a different direction. While the Craig era has holes big enough to park a fleet of Volvo 740's in (He acts juvenile, looks middle-aged, and is supposed to have made it through the SAS acting like he does? Oh come on, I would hope that they would have a better selection process than that.), and how he hasn't brought anything to the role that has not been (done far better, i'd like to add) by either Connery or Dalton. The Hulk Impersonation doesn't count.
TLD and LTK at my last ranking were at #1 and #2, whereas CR and QOS were down at around the 19 and 20 places. I'm still on GF in my 2011 ranking, so i'm interested to see if there's any major changes.
mine would be it tends to sag sometimes, the locations seem limited, Bond is either in Florida or Mexico, there's nothing like the usual array of locations we get to see
Moneypenny gets a criminal amount of screentime, no wonder Bliss is many peoples most forgettable Moneypenny, she hardly had a chance to do anything in either Dalton picture
It doesn't feel like a Bond film some of the time, Dalton goes on a personal vendetta and we get to see sharks and palm trees and drug distribution centers and at times I felt like I was watching something else rather than an 007 adventure, this may have worked with Craig in todays climate but back in 1989 it just seemed out of place
probably other bones of contention here but you get the idea
But my main problem is the violence, which is a tad closer to being sadistic than being realistic or exciting. And that's only the stuff they left in...seriously, Milton Krest's head exploding?
Dalton's terrific, though :P
also i wanted to mention , after goldfinger was released, Connery got out of shape and was losing his hair considerably, the films got way too unrealistic and idiotic...the James bond franchise needs to stay on the casino royale page...keep the films realistic, gritty, and true to Flemings true formula ...I absolutely despise all of u that think Roger Moore was the best bond, because he definitely was not. he was the worst. Pierce brosnan on the other hand was fed horrible scripts and the producers and directors made him play 007 more as a super-hero than a secret agent. Brosnan is a amazing character actor, he can really play a mean bastard and it kills me inside that EON and the directors did not take advantage of Brosnans grittyness and realism. I highly reccomend any bond fan to watch Brosnan's film "Seraphim Falls", the character he plays in this film is realistic and very bondian.
best bonds -
1. Connery ( DR.NO FRWL , GOLDFINGER ONLY)
2. Daniel Craig, but bond 23 may make him no.1
3. Brosnan-Dalton ..its a tie because both of these men were and still are great actors and both were unfairly treated with bad direction from directors and producers. Dalton and Brosnan could have been way more darker and realistically grittier but weren't given the creative green light to explore the character to its true depth.
4. Lazenby - Moore - they both stunk, they're films were as laughable as DAD was.
And how do you come to the conclusion that Casino Royale was realistic? No Bond film is realistic. If they were it would be 2 hours of turgid office based drama with Bond pushing paper around a desk and attending an occassional meeting. best bonds -
Do NOT despise the members here. As a relative new comer I would suggest you try instead to impress the members and get in their good books. It would help you along no end.
IMO, Roger Moore in TMWTGG is one of the most Fleming-esque performance in the series, more in-line with Fleming's Bond than Craig could ever hope to be. Whenever I watch 'Golden Gun', I instantly picture Fleming's Bond in Moore, and the film seem to come directly from Fleming's imagination. For me that film is in-line with OHMSS, FRWL and TB as the ultimate Fleming outings. Dalton is very Fleming-esque too... But his movies not so much.
I find that LTK has a lot of lacking qualities that made earlier Bondmovies look interesting. While I am by no means a Dalton film I found his first movie a much better Fleminque story. And while they were playing with some of the parts of Flemings Live and let Die that hadn't been used before they made a bit of a mess of it. The whole movie is a bit generic actionmovie and seems to go for some of the Miami Vice style tales. Havings rewatched them recently I can honestly say that they were much darker than glamorous than I remembered. This movie did TD no favors. ANd I wrote it before this is one of the two 007 movies I attended were quite a few folks did not return to their seats after the break. (I saw LTK on openingnight)