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Don't worry @Germanlady - it didn't take me long. It's a review by Roger Ebert, one of the foremost American film critics, from when the film came out in 1989.
Just trying to shoot down a few myths that seem to surround Dalton and LTK. From what I've been able to discover, LTK was actually pretty well reviewed in the US. What it lacked was a decent marketing effort.
But the film did very well in Europe and elsewhere anyway.
I'd agree with that. I don't recall there being any enthusiasm for him during his run among the masses.
I did, but it wasn't pinched from Ebert, I have always been very complimentary about Dalton's ability in the tough stuff.
Connery had a certain aggression in fight scenes that was convincing in a brutal way, Lazenby was a graceful fighter (if there is such a thing), but both looked like they knew they would win in the end.
Dalton genuinely looked like he was making it up as he went along, which is very realistic. The thing I enjoyed about LTK apart from the enjoyable bar room fight is the climatic tanker pursuit - it's among the best action scenes in the entire franchise, it was that good.
There, don't ever ask me to be nice about LTK again. ;-)
Fair enough, but the response of critics and movie goers is often different. You said this before:
I was just making the point that a lot of critics, even in the US, seemed to have quite liked Dalton and his two films. Infact when you actually look at the newspaper and TV reviews from that time, they seem to fly in the face of this idea that critics didn't like Dalton - quite the opposite in fact. A lot of them seemed to really embrace his take on Bond after the Moore era.
As for general movie goers in the US not having been very keen on Dalton I am not qualified to say, but assume from a lot of the comments I see from fans on here that that was probably true. Obviously we'll never know if Dalton could have overcome that in GE, as he wasn't given the chance, due to a studio exec at MGM who Barbara Brocolli has described in very choice language.
All I have to say is that Moore's tenure as Bond got off to a rocky start, and TMWTGG did not do well at all at the BO, but his third is a classic that cemented him as Bond legend.
Any way, I know that you're a Dalton defender, so I'm not having a go at you. I just think myths develop around certain actors and films. Like the myth that OHMSS was a disaster that persisted into the 1980s, before it began to be rehabilitated. Even though the film did well at the BO at the time and was even reasonably well reviewed. So I'm just challenging the myth that LTK was poorly received by critics, because actually it really wasn't.
From The New York Times, 1989:
"Though ''Licence to Kill'' is his second appearance as 007, Mr. Dalton is still the new James Bond, and the only element in the 27-year-old series that can offer a hint of surprise. The film retains its familiar, effective mix of despicably powerful villains, suspiciously tantalizing women and ever-wilder special effects. But Mr. Dalton's glowering presence adds a darker tone. The screenwriters Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum have accommodated this moodier Bond, and have even created a script that makes him fit for the 90's.
The story begins in Key West, Fla., where Bond and his friend, a United States Drug Enforcement Agent named Felix Leiter, take a detour on their way to Leiter's wedding. Before the title credits roll, Bond takes a short ride on top of a small plane to capture a Latin American drug lord and political tyrant named Sanchez, a topical villain who seems unmistakably modeled on Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega.
When Sanchez escapes and literally throws Bond's best friend to a shark, 007 gnashes his teeth with grief, scowls at the ineptitude of the American officials and vows to get Sanchez himself. Bond's superior, M, revokes his license to kill, an order that does nothing to slow him down. He simply moves on to Isthmus, the fictional country where Sanchez lives in a seaside mansion with all the garish furnishings drug money can buy.
The plot, of course, hardly matters, as long as it keeps Bond moving. Over the years, it has become harder for the series to keep up with all the splashy special-effects films it helped to inspire. Though ''Licence to Kill'' is more volatile than ''The Living Daylights,'' Mr. Dalton's first Bond film, it may seem tame next to hyperactive movies like ''Lethal Weapon 2.'' Here Bond faces a ninja and makes several underwater escapes. But the spectacular action is saved for the big final shootout, involving a convoy of tank trucks carrying cocaine-spiked gasoline; the possibilities for reckless driving, exploding trucks and flying bodies on a fiery, winding road are countless.
The nonviolent action includes a duel for Bond's affection, such as it is. Talisa Soto is Sanchez's disillusioned lover, Lupe Lamora, eager to betray him with just about anybody, but especially with Bond. And Carey Lowell becomes the most playful, modern Bond heroine in years as Pam Bouvier, a former Army pilot who helps to outwit Sanchez. When she and 007 meet in a dingy Bimini bar, Pam carries a gun much bigger than Bond's and seems at least as seductive and tough as he is. But in Isthmus, Bond forces her to pose as his secretary, introducing her as Miss Kennedy. ''It's Ms. Kennedy, and why can't you be my executive secretary?'' she asks, and Bond answers suavely, ''It's south of the border; it's a man's world.'' This ruse is a clever way for the writers to preserve, if only for old time's sake, some of Bond's traditional macho chauvinism, and it doesn't prevent Pam from packing a gun in her garter.
The endearing special-weapons wizard Q (Desmond Llewelyn) also arrives in Isthmus. He carries a satchel full of new toys, including an exploding alarm clock ''guaranteed never to wake up anyone who uses it.''
And in a bit of casting that is literally inspirational, Wayne Newton plays a slimy television evangelist whose ministry is a front for the drug operation. Clients phone in their pledges in a dial-a-drug scheme where a $500 donation means an order for 500 kilos of coke.
For all its clever updatings, stylish action and witty escapism, ''Licence to Kill,'' which opens today at Loews Astor Plaza and other theaters, is still a little too much by the book. Mr. Dalton is perfectly at home as an angry Bond, and as a romantic lead and as an action hero, but he never seems to blend any two of those qualities at once. He does not seem at ease with all of Bond's lines, and to the actor's immense credit he seems least comfortable when M meets him at Hemingway's house, a Key West tourist attraction, and tells him to turn over his gun. ''I guess it's a farewell to arms,'' says Mr. Dalton, not quite cringing. They have to stop writing lines like that for the Dalton Bond, or he'll really be full of angst. Meanwhile, he is beginning to hold his own with the shadows of his former self."
Not bad for a movie everyone hated...
His arrogant delivery of she'll call you back and him reporting in is fine but when he says better make that 2 it sounds seriously lame and his delivery is awkward.
Craig can be dangerous, suave and seductive and also do that dry sardonic wit. Dalton could have done the most Fleming like interpretation of the series but the general public didn't warm to him and a bunch of random reviews and some fans on this forum aren't going to change that.
;)
I don't know how scientific the review aggregator on Rotten Tomatoes is but LTK gets 76%, which seems fairly solid. A lot of the historic reviews from the time the movie came out seem to have been pretty positive.
@Shardlake, the LA Times and Roger Evert are hardly random. And there are plenty more good reviews from the time.
@Getafix I just remember folks not being enthusiastic about Dalton. They didn't dislike him (certainly not when TLD came out) but there was no passion for him either. I recall the usual interest for a new Bond, but it wasn't like when CR was released. Of course, Dalton did not pose in swimwear, and that may have had something to do with it. :)
In 1989, there were just so many other films that the public was craving other than Bond, regardless of the positive reviews that you cited. That year was dominated by the Bat in particular and Indie as well. LTK just got lost in the shuffle. In fact, I think 1989 was one of the most crowded release schedules of all time. 2015 interestingly, is similar.
As far as I understand, Rotten Tomatoes' review system works as reviewers write the review, and tell RT whether or not the film gets the binary "Fresh" or "Rotten" qualification. In this way, a 6/10 (Fresh) works the same as a 10/10 (Fresh) review.
A film with that gets 6/10 and 7/10 would be 100% Fresh on RT, where a film that gets 4/10, 9/10 and 10/10 would be 66% Fresh. I'll see if I can find my source for this.
At the end of the day, RT is bad.
:-??
And if I'm not mistaken RT does not merely show the reviews on release. Beside they are mainly from the English speaking world.
I have little respect for film critics, unless like the great Pauline Kael they are true students of movie history and not just some kid with a degree who probably hasn't seen Birth Of A Nation or The Crowd.
Agreed. It even did the DAH DAH BWAAAAA DAH DAH BWAAAAA DAH DA DEH DAH DAHH!
I think the unfortunate way Dalton got shafted out of a third film is what kind of screws his reputation up. Because he only did two, people unfamiliar with the franchise immediately assume everyone hated him, but I don't ever recall that being the case. It's just that a lot of people don't remember him after the runaway success of the Brosnan films.
While I do prefer Dalton to Brosnan as Bond himself, I feel that GoldenEye is a far slicker (and certainly more interesting to look at) film than Licence to Kill. The movies looked cool again with GE, and that might have been another factor against the Dalton films. If they shot GoldenEye in the exact same way and put Dalton in the role, I think it would have semi-reinvented the franchise in its own way. No longer were the Bond movies flatly lit, workmanlike pictures, but rather, flashy and modern...for better or for worse. (And this is coming from someone who prefers Daylights to all the Brosnan films.)
Personally, I quite enjoy the workman-like look to Dalton's movies- it lends a focus on character IMHO, but GE, and later TND looked so damned beautiful.
Failed is maybe an exaggeration, but I couldn't have written "did not have as much success as we'd expected, and is overall not enjoyed as much by the general public" in a title.
And I agree with you about the looks of Dalton's films.
Well, I'm not so sure you & your friends' appraisal of Dalton is shared by all that many other women. Most of the ladies I have discussed 007 matters with think Tim Dalton was a bona fide sex god when he played Bond.
Dark, enigmatic & masculine, far more alluring than either his predecessor or successor...
And as a bloke I can sort of see where they are coming from.
DC has quite a bit of that as well. But he does approach the 007 role in a more cinematic, 'mass-appeal' friendly fashion. Dalton was just too subtle for most audiences...