licence to kill: best bond film ever????

24567

Comments

  • edited May 2012 Posts: 12,837
    Moore is a nice guy, but his 007 tenure were a complete disgrace to the the books and to James bond. if I were Barbara broccoli I would remake all of the original book movies made by Moore with complete seriousness and realism in the timeline we live in now....

    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.
    Every bond is good in thier own right. Lazenby had one of the best bond films ever and was easily the best fighter until Craig showed up. Moore WAS bond for years, he was suave and he was peoples main interpritation of bond and thats why the Dalton films (awesome as they were) didn't do too well. Connery was not getting out of shape by GF, he was losing hair but he wore in toupe in all his bond films did he not???. As somebody above me said, there is no such thing as a realistic Bond film, or next to nobody would die and half the films would be Craig doing paperwork. There would be no big organisations like spectre or quantum.

    And finally, "despising users" because you disagree with thier opinion is retarded, I can't see you becoming too popular around here, keep this up and most people will have you down as a troll which they should ignore.
  • Posts: 11,425
    I like aspects of all the actors with one exception. But is LTK the best? No.
  • edited May 2012 Posts: 12,837
    Getafix wrote:
    I like aspects of all the actors with one exception. But is LTK the best? No.

    Brosnan laughs at you hating him from his mansion with his millions of $£$£$.
  • Posts: 1,492
    I or my tastes now.

    The best part of LTK is how Bond finds his way into Sanchez's operation and then uses his mind to get the better of him. The planting the seeds of doubt was masterful and a great change from many of the other films (and again, something more like what would happen in a Fleming novel -

    It remiinds me of Othello where Iago slowly insinuates Desdemonas infidelity until Othello goes over paranoid and destroys himself. He plays on his paranoia.

    Thats why I love it. There are adult themes. And alot of the Bond villains must have been paranoid. Blofeld executed people to remain in control. Fear is a way of binding people to you.
  • Posts: 1,492
    My biggest issue with LTK is the cheap, kind of dirty feeling of the film. You look at the hotel sequences with Fields in QoS, and that's the type of classy scenes I'd expect from a Bond film. For whatever reason all of the hotel sequences in LTK just didn't have the type of flair you'd expect from a Bond film. And it wasn't just the hotel sequences, I felt the same about a good number of scenes from the film.

    I personally really enjoy LTK. It's a great film IMO and Dalton is excellent in it, but it needed to have a few more elements of class added in to really make it one of the better Bond films like TLD was.


    The budget was frozen for LTK. Thats why they had to go to Mexico City. The cost of film making trebled but UA kept to the same budget. The same budget as AVTAK and TLD.

    Maybe Churubusco studios didnt have the polish of Pinewood but there are some some stunning visuals ie Sanchezs' palatial home on Isthmus Bay.

    I find the strong story negates any quibbles.
  • Lancaster007Lancaster007 Shrublands Health Clinic, England
    Posts: 1,874
    Wow. A lot wrong here..Bond AGAIN compared to Jason Bourne, Dalton beating Connery, Craig tying with Pierce, and Moore beating out of last place. WOW.

    Not wrong, just a difference of opinion. I kind of agree with thelivingroyal, though I'd put Lazenby ahead of Brosnan (only one film to go on, but had he continued I think he would have made a great Bond).


    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?


    Yes I can actually. Fleming wrote in the American idiom for his American characters. Probably one of the first popular English writers the do it.

    Can't really imagine Sharky (a brash American) talking any other way, "A Chainsaw, old man, I don't think so!" Doesn't really work.

    I think LTK is a great Bond film, one that at the time was very different and has become more popular over the years. For me Dalton is the best, just narrowly beating Big Sean. Shame he only made two films.
  • edited May 2012 Posts: 11,189
    actonsteve wrote:
    I or my tastes now.

    The best part of LTK is how Bond finds his way into Sanchez's operation and then uses his mind to get the better of him. The planting the seeds of doubt was masterful and a great change from many of the other films (and again, something more like what would happen in a Fleming novel -

    It remiinds me of Othello where Iago slowly insinuates Desdemonas infidelity until Othello goes over paranoid and destroys himself. He plays on his paranoia.

    Thats why I love it. There are adult themes. And alot of the Bond villains must have been paranoid. Blofeld executed people to remain in control. Fear is a way of binding people to you.

    Othello was done with a bit more panache though.

    Effectively the tone is just "Bond's mad and he's going to get even".

    Seriously, watch LTK after OHMSS and you'll see what I mean. It's good but it feels more like an "80s thriller" than Bond. As Desmond Llewlyn said "it lacked style".It's not a particularly indulgent film. Even the YOLT book where Bond also seeks revenge has more class and eligance.
  • edited May 2012 Posts: 12,837
    BAIN123 wrote:
    actonsteve wrote:
    I or my tastes now.

    The best part of LTK is how Bond finds his way into Sanchez's operation and then uses his mind to get the better of him. The planting the seeds of doubt was masterful and a great change from many of the other films (and again, something more like what would happen in a Fleming novel -

    It remiinds me of Othello where Iago slowly insinuates Desdemonas infidelity until Othello goes over paranoid and destroys himself. He plays on his paranoia.

    Thats why I love it. There are adult themes. And alot of the Bond villains must have been paranoid. Blofeld executed people to remain in control. Fear is a way of binding people to you.

    It's a cheap looking film. Bond should NEVER look cheap as LTK does.

    Effectively the story is just "Bond's mad and he's going to get even".

    No, the story is "Bond's mad because his best friend has been hurt and his friends wife killed, and now he's going to get even, by (after a failed assassination attempt) infiltrating the organisation of an insane and incredibly dangerous drug dealer, earning his trust and destroying his operation from the inside"
  • Posts: 1,492
    BAIN123 wrote:
    [
    Effectively the tone is just "Bond's mad and he's going to get even".

    .

    Well, isnt Hamlet? Hamlet's ,mad after seeing his uncle kill his father and he is going to get even?

    You can whittle down any story to a soundbite.

    Shall I try it for DAD?

  • Posts: 115
    For me, LTK is the best Bond film to have come out of the 80s but it isn't the best one.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    edited May 2012 Posts: 40,976
    @actonsteve, I said that to someone who talked about how SF looks like junk because it will be a revenge movie again.

    But, like you said, can't every Bond film or any action film, for that matter, be whittled down to a revenge film, or at least a film with a revenge-driven aspect to a point? I believe so.
  • Posts: 11,189
    LTK is miles ahead of DAD - I'll give you that.

    It's just the "overly 80s" feel to the film bothers me a bit. At least FYEO, OP, AVTAK and TLD had more of a "Bond-esque" way about then. They had more charm about them.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,183
    BAIN123 wrote:
    LTK is miles ahead of DAD - I'll give you that.

    I believe the expression is: "stating the obvious". ;-)

  • Posts: 1,082
    BAIN123 wrote:
    LTK is miles ahead of DAD - I'll give you that.

    I don't agree. :((

    I'd say it's the other way around. I mean LTK is a good action film and all, but DAD is IMO a really good way to modernize the Moore movies. A really good film IMO.
  • DRESSED_TO_KILLDRESSED_TO_KILL Suspended
    Posts: 260
    License to kill was a great outing, but the climatic ending was a disappointment. The trucks Chasing each other, unnecessary car explosions and bond doing a wheelie in a semi-truck was completely absurd to put in the film. I also disliked bonds final fight with Sanchez. I would have preferred Bond and Sanchez to just have a simple fight to the death, something similar to Craig's first kill shown in the beginning of CR .

    But as for the final ending scene where Bond is celebrating at the end with Lupe and Pam,then Bond chooses Pam and it ends with them in the pool kissing was a calm, happy and relaxing ending that I cannot compare to any other bond film. Perhaps its that 80's feeling or something, but I really liked the final scene.
  • Posts: 1,082
    License to kill was a great outing, but the climatic ending was a disappointment. The trucks Chasing each other, unnecessary car explosions and bond doing a wheelie in a semi-truck was completely absurd to put in the film. I also disliked bonds final fight with Sanchez. I would have preferred Bond and Sanchez to just have a simple fight to the death, something similar to Craig's first kill shown in the beginning of CR .

    Really? I think that the trucker chase is very good and the stuntmen did an incredible job. The wheelie part was ingenious IMO.

  • edited May 2012 Posts: 2,341
    @ SaintMark
    I totally disagree with your arguments. LTK is a damned good film. It is not respected (and I don't see why) among some of my colleagues on this discussion board. But I for one enjoyed both of Dalton's films. Even on his worst day (maybe his attempts at light humor in TLD) he is heads over shoulders better than Brosnan.

    That being said, LTK scores on all fronts:
    the villian is a physical match for Bond
    the cold brooding moody killer that Bond is played well in this entry
    The chicks were both 'hot'.
    Sanchez's henchmen were not the big buff rugby players(and blond) we usually see but some physically small and violent drug dealers. This gallery of rogues may have been slightly built but they were cold blooded and violent killers. the type you find in most drug cartels. This film is probablty the most meticulously casted film in a long, long time.
    The stunts were good and the underwater battle rivals the action in Thunderball...
    The rogue agent was played to outstanding effect in this film and it was good to see old Q out of his shop and being a field agent.
    the Violence (many good guys die in this one-gritty realism) was right on and the brutal deaths of the bad guys was well deserved. Krest, Dario, Heller, Lodge, and Sanchez.

    I felt drained after this movie but fully satisfied.

  • edited May 2012 Posts: 11,425
    I agree with many of the positive comments here but also a lot of the criticisms. It's a real mixed bag of a movie. I love the way its supporters feel so strongly about it. For me Dalton has always had a claim to being one of the best Bonds and I think had he done a third we would have had a fairer basis by which to judge him. As it is, I personally cannot put LTK above the vast majority of Sean and Roger's movies, and not even above TLD. While I've come to appreciate it, I've just never really enjoyed it that much.

    I find it amusing that some people describe it as a serious thriller, which I suppose on some levels it is. And yet, the underwater fight and Bond's escape is so OTT and typical of (frankly) a Roger Moore era film, that I cannot really accept this view of LTK. The thing is, as much as I enjoy an excellent, serious thriller, this is never what I really look for in a Bond film. Yes, there has to be an element of seriousness to it. I have never been a fan of too many one liners or visual gags. But overall, a Bond film is not and should not be too serious an affair. If it is, it loses its charm and what actually makes it unique and distinguishable from other action/thrillers.

    LTK has enough Bondian elements in it to still feel like a Bond movie, but it ran dangerously close to losing its identity. I have no doubt that had Dalton made a third film, it would have taken a totally different approach and brought back a much more light hearted tone. If even Dalts himself felt the whole LTK outing was a bit dour, then the series would probably have swung back to more familiar ground for the next film. Since Dalton didn't actually see the LTK script until ten days before filming, it is fairly clear that the darker tone of LTK is less to do with Dalton himself than a decision by the producers to go down a darker route. Dalton's performance in TLD and willingness to do daft Moore-esque sight gags like the magic carpet shows that he is much less of the brooding, 'dark' Bond that he is often made out to be.
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,304
    I hate hate hate Felix's line about fishing at the end. If you had just gotten your leg bitten off by a shark, that would be the last thing you would suggest.

    Come to think of it, there are fishing references all over this film, from Bond's "Let's go fishing!" in the PTS to the winking fish at the end. Perhaps it should have been called Licence to Fish.
  • edited May 2012 Posts: 11,189
    I've said it before and I'll say it again.

    WATCH OHMSS AND LTK TOGETHER TO SEE HOW A BOND MOVIE SHOULD BE DONE.

    ;)

    As a thriller it's pretty good but as a Bond movie it falls short. It's hardcore supporters can big it up but, truth is, it probably damaged the series more than we like to think.
  • X3MSonicXX3MSonicX https://www.behance.net/gallery/86760163/Fa-Posteres-de-007-No-Time-To-Die
    Posts: 2,635
    echo wrote:
    I hate hate hate Felix's line about fishing at the end. If you had just gotten your leg bitten off by a shark, that would be the last thing you would suggest.

    You were bitten off by a shark ? o_O Or you're just supposing?
  • Posts: 1,143
    LTK is not your ordinary typical Bond flick and for that reason I love it and applaud it. It is not very Bond like in places but is a very good action movie with a different take on how a Bond movie can be made, with more on being brutal than lighthearted. It strays from the confort zone for too many Bond fans prehaps but I like the fact it was brave enough to be different. Personally however I will always prefer TLD as it is closer to classic Bond/ Fleming Bond style that I prefer.
  • Posts: 11,425
    LTK is not your ordinary typical Bond flick and for that reason I love it and applaud it. It is not very Bond like in places but is a very good action movie with a different take on how a Bond movie can be made, with more on being brutal than lighthearted. It strays from the confort zone for too many Bond fans prehaps but I like the fact it was brave enough to be different. Personally however I will always prefer TLD as it is closer to classic Bond/ Fleming Bond style that I prefer.

    TLD is definitely better.

  • Posts: 11,189
    It strays from its comfort zone but in the process it takes out quite a lot that made Bond popular in the first place.

    CR is a "different take" but it has charm, wit and panache. The locations and cinematography are stunning, the humour is toned down but still plentiful and the story and tone still fit the "Bond mould".
  • Posts: 11,189
    Getafix wrote:
    LTK is not your ordinary typical Bond flick and for that reason I love it and applaud it. It is not very Bond like in places but is a very good action movie with a different take on how a Bond movie can be made, with more on being brutal than lighthearted. It strays from the confort zone for too many Bond fans prehaps but I like the fact it was brave enough to be different. Personally however I will always prefer TLD as it is closer to classic Bond/ Fleming Bond style that I prefer.

    TLD is definitely better.

    Dalton apparently prefers it.
  • Posts: 1,143
    BAIN123 wrote:
    Getafix wrote:
    LTK is not your ordinary typical Bond flick and for that reason I love it and applaud it. It is not very Bond like in places but is a very good action movie with a different take on how a Bond movie can be made, with more on being brutal than lighthearted. It strays from the confort zone for too many Bond fans prehaps but I like the fact it was brave enough to be different. Personally however I will always prefer TLD as it is closer to classic Bond/ Fleming Bond style that I prefer.

    TLD is definitely better.

    Dalton apparently prefers it.

    That it interesting. Would that be based on his self aprasial on his own performance or the movie as a whole I wonder? I feel he gave a more assured performance in LTK.
  • edited May 2012 Posts: 11,189
    This is the passage from James Bond Unmasked.

    "I thought it had a good story but it was too dour" confided Dalton who prefers The Living Daylights. "Of course it was first called Licence Revoked but MGM didn't think anyone would understand it...It had that one theme of revenge. And it had a go at establishing a different kind of Bond but it dragged it away completely. Why can't you have both - seriousness and droll, cynical wit?"
  • edited May 2012 Posts: 11,425
    BAIN123 wrote:
    This is the passage from James Bond Unmasked.

    "I thought it had a good story but it was too dour" confided Dalton who prefers The Living Daylights. "Of course it was first called Licence Revoked but MGM didn't think anyone would understand it...It had that one theme of revenge. And it had a go at establishing a different kind of Bond but it dragged it away completely. Why can't you have both - seriousness and droll, cynical wit?"

    Thanks for that excellent quote BAIN. Very interesting. Some of those who claim LTK and the super serious DC films are the way forward would do well to read this comment. Another reminder as well that Dalton was not the driving force behind the darker tone of LTK. DC recently made some surprisingly similar statements about the lack of wit in QoS and (it seemed to me) CR.
  • edited May 2012 Posts: 11,189
    Getafix wrote:
    BAIN123 wrote:
    This is the passage from James Bond Unmasked.

    "I thought it had a good story but it was too dour" confided Dalton who prefers The Living Daylights. "Of course it was first called Licence Revoked but MGM didn't think anyone would understand it...It had that one theme of revenge. And it had a go at establishing a different kind of Bond but it dragged it away completely. Why can't you have both - seriousness and droll, cynical wit?"

    Thanks for that excellent quote BAIN. Very interesting. Some of those who claim LTK and the super serious DC films are the way forward would do well to read this comment. Another reminder as well that Dalton was not the driving force behind the darker tone of LTK. DC recently made some surprisingly similar statements about the lack of wit in QoS and (it seemed to me) CR.

    I think Dalton definitely wanted to make Bond more serious but, at the same time, make them escapist adventures with eligance - like the books were. The problem with Kill is that it looses a lot of the latter.
  • Posts: 6,432
    good movie in its own right a departure of sorts though always enjoy watching it. though not in my top ten bond movies.
Sign In or Register to comment.