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The title should have remained 'Licence Revoked' which is what the film is about for christsakes! In the context of the film 'Licence To Kill' makes no sense.
I agree with @bondjames regarding Dalton's hair. It just looks so 'un-Bond.' His hair looked fine in TLD so why change it?
Dalton's performance is a massive letdown in this coming after his excellent turn in TLD.
He overacts to the point of being unintentionally funny. You can see the acting and his accent is all over the place. If "Things were about to get nusty" doesn't crease you up then, "Your bloddy lucky to be aleeve!" should do the trick. And don't get me started on the embarrassing "DELLA!"
Dalton looks very uncomfortable in the film. He's stiff, over elaborates all his lines and has this grim look on his face for most of the film. This i assume is supposed to convey fury but he just looks constipated. (
(A member on here today rated his performance better than Connery's in DN (!) The men in white coats are on their way.....
The revenge story is dull and uninteresting. We've seen the same stuff before in Segal, Van Damme and Arnie's films. It just isn't Bond. Bond is apparently ever so clever to turn Sanchez into thinking those closest to him are betraying him, but the whole plan hinges on Sanchez's apparent right hand man Dario not showing up for most of the film to identify Bond.
A lot of the action is poor. The PTS has some decent stuff but it's just not that exciting. And Sanchez takes a very long time to realize there's a helicopter flying above him with a bloke dangling from a wire just behind his tail.
The bar room brawl is weak. The scene where Bond commandeers the seaplane is well done and probably the best moment in the film.
Robert Davi is excellent but his character is just the generic drug lord we've seen in so many 80's action flicks.
Carey Lowell is the best thing in the film. Wouldn't change anything about her.
Kamen's score is dreadful for the most part. Those godawful spanish guitars really grate and he has no actual theme taken from the main song or composed. It's just non stop variations on the Bond theme. The truck chase needed more music to accompany it and as a result the sequence feels uninvolving and flat.
I think Barry could have at least raised this films pleasure with a great score.
I like Q in the film but his appearance is a odds with the films grim nature.
Bond's truck wheelie is dumb. And too far fetched to belong in a 'serious' Bond thriller.
The actual truck chase is well done for the most part the final confrontation between Bond and Sanchez should have been more personal. Two blokes scuffling on the back of a tanker is a let down. Then a quick flash of a lighter and it's all over, with Sanchez probably barely registering what it said.
The ending should have been low key. But the makers want to have their cake and eat it. After all the grim bloodshed where so many innocents have died we have a party at Sanchez's villa! A horrible happy ending and that sickening winking fish, not to mention Felix Leiter, the cause of all this mayhem wnats to be up and fishing before he's even buried his murdered wife! (Remember her..?)
The ending should have had Bond saying goodbye to Pam and going back to London for an uncertain future in the service.
LTK was a departure from the norm and it should have had a new director and scriptwriter to follow this new type of Bond through to the final product. It wasn't until many years later they got this approach right with CR.
There is too much that i'd change in LTK for it to still be the same film. It's like a stick of rock with all the wrong stuff riddled all the way through it.
-The theme song doesn't work. This movie needs something more intense. And the song over the closing credits is disastrous. The score doesn't work for me, in places.
-Talisa Soto falls awfully flat. In her defense, the way the character's written she doesn't have much to do except be a needy damsel permanently in distress, but still - I just don't much care about her.
-Overall, the 'look' of the movie feels a bit cheap. Might be production design, might be cinematography, but the feeling is much more TV than film. This may be unfair, but especially considering the florida keys location etc., there's a real 'Miami Vice' feel to it.
-The tanker truck climax feels underwhelming to me, though I know some like it. Somehow it's just a bit naff - it feels plodding and small.
-I might want a re-write to raise the stakes a bit; it seems it took until the Craig era to really be willing to get serious. Della is killed, but we don't know a thing about her and, frankly, Felix doesn't seem to upset. (Ditto Sharky, though, oddly, to a lesser degree). Felix himself "only" loses a leg and doesn't appear too bothered by it. Bond 'goes rogue' but gets all sorts of help from MI6 and the CIA. And ultimately he's after revenge against a drug smuggler: smuggling is a bit small-fry for Bond, so the personal stakes need to really be high here.
-The movie goes underwater, which is a cardinal sin in my books.
And as always, some things I wouldn't change at all:
-the PTS is good fun.
-Carey Lowell is great, and her character is excellent. I think she comes closer than almost anyone to the "I'm Bond's equal!" that so many have strived for more recently. She's competent and confident, but also able to be vulnerable or affectionate.
-Davi is a good enough villain.
-Joe Butcher is genius.
1) Re-cast: Lowell and Soto
2) Change the score. Keep the opening and closing music though.
3) No happy ending.
If they wanted to go full 80s action movie with it then I think John Mctierman would have been perfect. But Glen knows his Bond and I think he did a brilliant job with LTK, especially the action scenes.
.Give Dalton a better haircut.
.Drop the "I love James so much" line.
.Keep some of the deleted scenes, especially the one of Bond watching Sanchez on TV.
I love this movie, even with the flaws.
Keep the revenge angle, but let it be about the mutilation of Leiter. Having his wife murdered on his wedding day, just like Bond, is too much.
Yeah the entire wedding part could have been eliminated. They could have had Bond, Leiter and Sharkey fishing or something.
Agree on all 3 of those points.
How would you have ended the film instead?
Agreed.
Changes I'd make to LTK:
1) Keep the original title.
2) The film's script originally intended for the film to be set in China. I wish they would've keep it that way since would've given the Dalton era its Far Eastern series entry(like YOLT was for Connery and TMWTGG was for Moore) and would've been far more exotic for North American audiences than yet another '80s action film or tv series made in Florida and Mexico.
3) Recast Felix Leiter with Lee Horsley.
4) Get John Barry to score it.
5) Eliminate the Bimini Bar sequence and fight which would seem more at home in a Burt Reynolds film rather than a 007 one.
6) Most radical change I would make is one I mentioned earlier in the FYEO section of this thread: I'd lift Miss Havelock(Melina in the FYEO film but Judy in Fleming's short story), her dad and mom, Gonzales and the entire FYEO short story elements from the 1981 Bond film and put them in the 1989 one with Sanchez being the one responsible for Mr. and Mrs. Havelock's murders. The idea of LTK's Dalton Bond teaming up with FYEO's Melina in pursuit of Sanchez has long been a "parallel universe" Bond film dream of mine. If only we could mix and match elements from the films like legos.
I just mentioned it!
Love or hate the film (and I do like it), I've always thought it looked like a made-for-TV movie (the plot doesn't help.)
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: America has never looked good in a Bond film.
Following on from that, bring back Keach as Leiter. I would leave the rest of LTK, exactly as it is.
Back then I'd have also considered Richard Dean Anderson as a potential Leiter.
The reason for ditching China, as far as I recall, was 'The Last Emperor' ( a flop?) got the jump on them, I think John Glen mentions it in his book. I will look it up.
Regarding LTK as cheap looking. I don't think it's that bad. The shots of g the centre blowing up at the end are spectacular, and it's stylish mostly.
And anyway, I think LTK is more about story and character and I agree, along with OHMSS it has the most exciting finale of the series!
Not getting into this "Daltons hair" nonsense. I leave that to the 'CraigNotBond' crowd!
The score is the only thing I would change. Unfortunately Barry was seriously ill at the time and was unable to do it!
I think it was more the expense of shooting in China that was Eon's concern at the time.
The Pam Bouvier character is all over the place, going from tough chick to high school-level emotions over the course of the film. Save the jealousy for Moneypenny. A lot of whiny moments as well such as "Why can't you be my secretary?" Those scratch the resourceful moments. And why is she such a terrible shot she can't hit Dario from point-blank range?
Talisa Soto makes Tanya Roberts look like Meryl Streep. The only decent moment she has is when Dalton has her cornered on the WaveKrest and shows actual fear. Sanchez has his faults and his obsession over her is maybe the biggest.
As for Talisa Soto, she was great in that scene on the wavecrest with Dalton and to be fair she had little acting experience. But there were plenty of actresses down through the years in Bonds that were terrible in the acting stakes...Claudine Auger, Barbara Bach, Lois Chile's, Michelle Yeoh, Denise Richards and mentioned, Tanya Roberts to name a few. I thought Soto did alright and it helped that she is easier on the eye than most!
That is probably just a reaction to Dalton breathing on her face.
I think it's one of the best villain's death scenes in the series. Far better than the Brosnan era 'witty quip before killing them' thing we had, with Carver and Graves. But if I were the director, I'd have given the audience a more definite reaction from Sanchez.
By the way, after Bond kills Sanchez, he sits and sighs. He looks sad, as if he's weary of all the killing. It's a great Daltonesque moment, and very Fleming.
Love that moment! I don't know if it was improvised by Dalton. It wouldn't surprise me. A lot of people miss those little moments by him!
Heck, Dalton's Bond even smoked!
Yes, I believe Dalton insisted on Bond smoking as Fleming describes him as a heavy smoker!
Watched FYEO yesterday on television. In the casino sequence I remember Starburst magazine did an article on it at the time of release...an interview with John Glen. It showed a behind the scenes photo of Glen directing Moore. Moore had a cigarette in his hand and I remember thinking how Bondian he looked! I do think they should have Craig s Bond smoke. After all he is shown as a heavy drinker in his Bond outings!
I doubt we'll see a smoking Bond again. People will have fits with that.
If Bond were to smoke, where would he do it anyway? You can't smoke inside public buildings these days. We're lucky he still drinks.
Is Spectre the only movie that references his pill-popping? I think it is. Mathis offers him some in QoS but he doesn't take them.