It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I don't think it's mentioned too much in the novels, but I think he takes speed in Moonraker.
I don't think Silva was on about aspirin in Skyfall though.
In retrospect, I think the reason the wedding part was included in LTK was to illustrate how a Lazenby DAF might've turned out with Della a stand-in for Tracy and Sanchez a stand-in for Blofeld.
Horsley, like Leiter, is an actual Texan so they could've played that part up with him in the role. Also, it would've reunited him with Priscilla Barnes who had earlier played his leading lady in the comedy western "The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch", a TV movie made when he was Matt Houston and she was Teri on "3's Company".
MacGyver teams up with 007? Interesting concept.
ITA. The whiny, jealous, high school girl aspects to the Pam character were very off putting for me also. I don't blame the actress for this since it was Wilson and Maibaum who wrote her character that way. As she's written Pam seems to think she is the Dalton era's Tracy Bond when in actuality she's the Dalton era's Aki(albeit not as sophisticated as Aki). Considering the fact that LTK was the most serious Bond film made since OHMSS up to that point(1989) in the series, I wish that Dalton Bond had been teamed up with a female ally who was written to be more serious and sophisticated in the Melina Havelock mold(if not actually Melina herself) instead.
At least LTK's script had Talisa scream "James!" less than Tanya did.
For starters, ditch the title song and give us something edgier to fit the movie.
Recast Soto and Zerbe and Hedison and Barnes with stronger actors. This is one of the weakest ensembles of any Bond film. Or at least don't give Soto many lines: let her pout and glower. Dial back the Wayne Newton cameo or cut him out entirely.
Rethink the whole middle sequence with Q in Isthmus. Cut out the back and forth with Pam and Lupe--it's dumb. Make it about Bond seducing Lupe for information. Add more Dario. Get rid of the endless roundelay of supporting characters: Heller, etc. Did we really need that Chinese/ninja (?) subplot? (If so, give us scenes in the Far East!)
The rest of LTK works and can stay, including the score.
This I think is a mostly harmless holdover from the war. Fleming and his cohort would have been familiar with taking military-issue amphetamines, which the forces very regularly doled out to pilots, soldiers, and all manner of people needing a 'push.'
I'm sure at the time it would have seemed a little 'hard-edged,' or intense for Bond to take them, but not at all criminal or seedy. The associations with speed today would be quite different I think.
It's also interesting how Eon went from hot artists of the time like Sheena Easton, Duran Duran and a-ha to Gladys Knight, who was way past her star prime in '89. If You Asked Me To has endured, becoming bigger when covered by other artists.
I'm not going to go through a point-by-point of the movie, but I think @BAIN123 is right: It needed a much better director than John Glen. Everything looks flat and listless, lighting too bright, no contrast, no depth, which is probably why some say it looks and feels like a TV episode of Miami Vice. I happen to think this is doing an incredible disservice to Miami Vice, as that was very stylishly shot compared to LTK.
I really like Robert Davi, Anthony Zerbe and Benicio Del Toro. They're not the problem here. It's the women that let this movie down. Priscilla Barnes as Della feels like she's just stepped out of an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful. Even when she's playing dead she's unconvincing. Dalton is pretty good in the first half of LTK aside from the ill-advised dancing at the wedding reception to calypso music. Mostly everything that follows that I can find fault with is down to poor direction and the odd poor casting of a female character. So to summarise: the best way to improve LTK would have been to sack John Glen and replace him with a director that could do justice to this different style Bond movie. Of course, Eon would see the error of their ways and look to replace him after this listless affair. Such a shame as I still think there's some really good stuff in LTK. A better director, such as Campbell, would have brought that out of this movie.
Oh god, I'd forgotten about the ninjas! I do remember that ninjas were very much in fashion in 80s action movies. There was some sort of belief that they were essentially bullet-proof supermen who could silently leap tall buildings and decimate armies. But it really hasn't aged well.
The biggest sin there is the awful sound-effects work. Constant whishing and swishing noises whenever the ninjas move their hands.
Saying that, I did quite like the sequence leading up to it, with Bond figuring out how to use the explosives to do a sniper hit. I'd love to see more movies showing us his process a little bit.
I loved the ninjas! That aside, the Dalton's capture and then rescue by Sanchez is one of the best parts of the film.
The confrontation with M isn't as strong as it should be. Partly this is due to miscasting: Robert Brown was no Bernard Lee and there's no sense that Bond and this M had much of a relationship to fracture. One get the impression that Brown's M has no personal regard for Bond. But a director with a better feel for drama would have crafted the performances to convey how painful the scene was for both characters.
A greater flaw is how the ending ties up loose dramatic ends with ridiculous ease. Leiter is ridiculously jaunty for a man whose lost his wife and two limbs, and M is ridiculously eager to rehire Bond. The tone is terribly off. Bond and Leiter's conversation should have had more warmth and melancholy (as in the novel of DAF).
The question of Bond's re-employment either should have been left hanging and resolved in the next film (perhaps not the best idea, given how things turned out) or there should have been some complications. Instead of having Leiter convey M's wishes, perhaps Moneypenny could have called afterward and said something like "The old man's not speaking to you, but if you meet me at headquarters I'll do my damnedest." I find it hard to believe that M would not have hard feelings about Bond's insubordination, and this would have been dramatically rich terrain.
The picture also would have been strengthened by just a little bit more business between Bond, Dell, and Leiter, since the actors had something of a rapport.
Dalton's hair doesn't bug me as me as much as his clothes. He's sloppily dressed in ill-fitting off-the-rack junk and only looks Bondian in the casino (I confess I sort of like the Dracula hairdo).
Talisa Soto is very stiff but very beautiful (like Barbara Bach). Dubbing had fallen into disuse by '89, so the only option would have been for the director to coax a better performance out of her.
I'm agnostic about the bar fight. It's meant to be comical, since the idea of Bond in a sleazy American bar is inherently comical, and I like the swordfish gag. The locations don't bother me. I think Key West looks pretty good in the film, and the Mexican locations have necessary variety, with the lushness of Sanchez's waterfront palace contrasting with the desert harshness of his business lair.
Kamen's score is decent but often unmemorable (aside from the Pam theme) and Barry would have added a lot to the film. His use of motif held a picture together as well as editing. Barry also would have created a better theme song--LTK is fine but derivative (Barry sued over its resemblance to Goldfinger) and doesn't give the great Gladys Knight a chance to pull out all the stops. Binder's titles aren't his best, but they show him exploring new motifs (like the camera). The fascinating Art of the Title feature devoted to Bond notes that:
And now a list of stuff that other people dislike about LTK which I shall defend:
* The winking fish. The film has ended, it's a been an often-grim experience, and a little levity is fine.
* Dalton's performance. Seething anger and gruff forthrightness are Dalton's specialties and he goes to town with them in this film. I don't understand why his extreme emotion at seeing his best friend's wife murdered--which obviously gives him flashbacks to Tracy--is a problem.
* Q's appearance. These are one of the few times in the series where we actually get
the sense of the regard Bond and Q have for each other as comrades. After the Connery and Moore films, where Q was little more than someone for Bond to annoy, LTK's presentation of their relationship comes across as far more human and satisfying. With Dalton you can see the gruff respect he and Q, who acts like a real Uncle, have for each other.
Q's presence also underscores one of the major themes of Licence to Kill: that it's not enough to want revenge. Bond wants to be an action hero badass and destroy Sanchez singlehanded. He doesn't want anyone's help. But without Pam and Q's help, his efforts backfire and go nowhere: hence the Hong Kong narcotics people and the Stinger missile mess, which suggests Sanchez would have been taken down earlier if Bond hadn't blundered in trying to do everything himself. Bond succeeds only by realizing his hubris and accepting the help of others.
And the broomstick transmitter is a priceless--Q's admission that if he was a field agent he would be just as cavalier about his gadgets.
*Wayne Newton. His character shows how Sanchez's operation works, he injects some satirical humor into the film at the expense of the religious evangelists popular at the time, and his unctuous personality perfectly suits him to play a religious hypocrite and sleazebag. I will go out on a limb and call him one of the best henchmen in the series, even though Bond doesn't actually fight him.
*Leiter's bride getting murdered. Saying her death is too much is precisely the point--it's there to push Bond fully over the edge, so that he doesn't merely contemplate resigning but does so wholeheartedly. Bond's rage is not just over Leiter's injuries, it's about Leiter being denied the same happiness that was denied to Bond. Avenging Della gives him a chance to avenge Tracy too--something Bond had been denied in every previous film. I tip my hat to Wilson and Maibaum for that. It pays off with Sanchez's death--Bond using the symbol of Felix's marriage to destroy its destroyer is the best instance of poetic justice in any Bond film.
I'm currently rewatching it now and I'm going to take back what I said about some of the women in this movie. Carey Lowell is very good indeed. I'd go so far as to say that she's the best Bond girl out of the entire Dalton/Brosnan era until Eva Green came along. I'd also forgotten the bit when Dalton tells Fallon to "piss off." Lovely moment. The ninja fight scene that proceeded it, however, is still poorly executed and looks totally unconvincing IMO.
But it would have never been in a Moore movie, because the recurring shtick in them was that Q would show up only to assign Bond a gadget, while enduring lots of teasing from Bond, and then complain about its misuse. The filmmakers perhaps realized this didn't really work with Dalton, made the relationship more avuncular, and for the first time made Q act like a genuine field agent. And the pleasing irony is that once in the field, Q adopts a Bondian field agent's purely utilitarian attitude toward gadgets. He's so happy at having successfully assisted in the mission that he doesn't give a damn about the whether or not the gadget gets back in one piece.
Fortunately, there aren't too many of these scenes in LTK. Overall, it's one of the better later Bond movies. If I was to participate in these constant rankings that go on here, I'd have it easily in my Top 10 without a doubt. Not on its direction mind, which I still think is flat and listless, but on Dalton's performance and the performances of Robert Davi, Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Zerbe and I'd also now include Carey Lowell—who I think did exceptionally well with some of the dialogue that she was given. I also don't have a problem with Dalton's seething anger, it works within the context of the story. After watching this again, I'd say I still prefer Dalton's take on 007 to that of Brosnan's.
As for Talisa Soto, I don't find her too offensive. There's only a few awkward moments which is mostly down to the goofy dialogue that she's been given to drive the plot forward or make her seem insanely in love with James Bond.
I still find the moment when Don Stroud suddenly bursts through the wall skewered on a forklift truck a bit daft and unexplained. It's like a cliched horror shock scene from a Friday the 13th movie. Other than that, this is damn fine Bond movie. So my earlier reservations about it have been totally erased. I even don't mind the end song sung by Patti LaBelle, especially when I compare it to the dreadful Eric Serra song "The Experience of Love" at the end of GE.
So to summarise: Get a better PTS and a better title song. Get rid of some of the tackiness out of the movie, like those unconvincing rubber maggots for one. Change the line from "Bon appetit" as he shuts Krest's henchman in the drawer, especially as maggots pose no threat to humans due to the fact they don't eat living flesh. Improve the continuity of the movie. It's a bit all over the place, including Dalton's hairstyle. One minute it's windswept, the next it's combed over; the next its below his collar line, the next it's cut shorter and above the collar. Get a more creative director. There's a few pleasing shots in this film, such as the scene where Dalton has a knife to Talisa Soto's throat, so it wasn't beyond John Glen to get creative. He just seemed adverse to it with his rather pedestrian direction in this particular movie. But I'd be a curmudgeon to say that these things ruined LTK for me. After just viewing it again after a long time, I'm willing to promote it as my favourite non-Fleming titled Bond movie. Yeah, that means its above the majority of Craig's and Brosnan's output, with the exception of CR.
Something bothers me at times about Dalton’s seething anger in this. It feels rather forced like when he first finds Della or later with Lupe at the casino, you can sense him trying very hard. But he works very well with Davi and their scenes together are compelling.
One of my favourite moments from Dalton thought is earlier outside Felix’s house with the two and Della just before Sanchez’s men strike. Very nicely done.
Agreed! Feel the same way with Craig.
I love this part! It's Sanchez going full paranoid.
I quite enjoy LTK. Great action (several scenes have been repeatedly ripped off in other films) and IT'S got Dalton so must have something going for it.
I rate Mrs Gere a lot more than I used to - she's a good foil to Dalton's rather stiff Bond. Arguably one of the best American Bond girls.
Very good villain and some decent henchmen.
With hindsight though, the personal revenge and 'going rogue' dimensions seem to mark the beginning of a period where these became endlessly rehashed and basically the norm.
The comedy is jarring at times but it is what it is. At least the plot is inspired by Kurosawa and not some lame rehash of old plotlines.
Again, I can see why this might bother some but not all of us. For me, it was Dalton taking the role seriously and getting into the character. I agree that he is perhaps a little too overwrought when he's meeting M for the first time at Hemingway's House, but it would be churlish of me to say it took me out of the moment. I actually preferred Dalton when he was simmering compared to the times when he was smiling and laughing. There's a few dud moments like when the speedboat runs out of fuel, but this has nothing to do with actors and more to do with the writing and flat direction. Also, Dalton's lapses into his local dialect didn't bother me anymore than say Connery's Scottish burr did.
I'll be honest, I wasn't a fan of the scenes featuring Priscilla Barnes. Being British, I was unfamiliar with Barnes before seeing LTK as here in the UK we didn't get Three's Company, being we had the original Man About the House in which that particular sitcom was based. For me and on reflection, LTK gets off to shaky start which might have tarnished a lot of the good stuff that came later in the movie. If LTK had had a truly knock-it-out-of-the-park PTS and a gutsy Bond song, it would've help set its stall out for what followed next.
I started watching some of the extras on the DVD and it was interesting to see an '89 Dalton discussing the actresses that had proceeded his own movies. He admitted that their roles had been somewhat underwritten and rather one dimensional and hoped that his 2 movies could perhaps help reverse a lot of that. Though he did cite both Connery and Lazenby's Bond girls as being very special (particularly Diana Rigg) plus he did have a very good word to say about Jill St. John also, I do feel that perhaps (reading between the lines) he was mostly having a dig at Roger Moore's tenure more than anything else. I get where he's coming from because they're my least favourite also, with the exception of Scorupco and Teri Hatcher whom I dislike too.
Terri Hatcher I agree though is bad.
I can back most of this. It's still my #3 film.
I assume it was deliberate to make Bond an off the peg kind of chap for this one (nothing wrong with that - Bond has to be re-imagined by each actor), but that doesn't mean he can't wear his clothes well and look the part. Bond strolling stiffly into a casino in an ill fitting tux with terrible hair, is unforgiveable. I would change that.
While we are on the casino scene, look at all of Bond's casino scenes and you get something of the sumptuous, cosy, warmth of the surroundings. In LTK despite its South American setting you feel the casino is cold and uninviting. I would sort that minor issue out.
Talisa Soto. Kill her off asap.
I don't like the cinematography, or many of the locations.
I don't mind that they upped the ante as far as screen violence goes. It was an attempt to shake things up. I just don't think it worked out very well, bordering on distasteful.
The plot, despite being fairly basic still seemed rushed and cluttered. Better pacing required.
Unmemorable dialogue. Needed tidying up.
I liked much of the action, especially the climax.
I loved Robert Davi and Benitio del Toro.
I quite liked Pam Bouvier as a character. An annoying feminist. Know lots of girls like her
Like On Her Majesty's Secret Service before it and Casino Royale after it, Licence To Kill assumes its position as top quality Bondage by ignoring the Goldfinger formula which created so many average entries in the series. Finally allowing James Bond to function as a human being with fragile emotions and a fierce sense of loyalty to his friends. Licence To Kill only falters when it feels the need to crowbar in the scenes it thinks the generic audience demands.
So what do you call those that don’t like LTK?
That must make me a 'fake' Bond fan then. Dammit!!!