The Living Daylights
Published 2015-09-18
Licensed to thrill
Film info
- Director
- Year / Run time 1987 · 2hr 10m
- Series James Bond (15 of 25)
- Genres Action, Adventure, Thriller
Armed with razor-sharp instincts and a license to kill, James Bond battles diabolical arms merchants bent on world domination in this thrilling, lightning-paced adventure. Timothy Dalton brings energy, humour and ruthless cunning to his debut performance as Agent 007.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 1:24 | Already you can tell this Bond is more sprightly. |
| 6:56 | Why did he have two parachutes to land on Gibraltar? |
| 9:49 | The "Guess the Artist" game is actually getting more exciting than the films! |
| 18:33 | "Our engineers have spent months working on this." That's Q, that is. |
| 21:56 | Lots of plane goodness in this. |
| 24:08 | "Any time you want to drop by and listen to my Barry Manilow collection..." Worst chat up line ever. |
| 27:02 | Baddy arriving in a milk cart is the least threatening thing I've seen in a long time. |
| 44:01 | I like stroppy Bond. Slamming car seats and stuff. "Why didn't you learn the violin?" |
| 47:12 | Wowsers, never seen Bond versus tank before. |
| 50:56 | Love the cello wrangling. Wonder how many times they had to film that throw and catch. |
| 1:03:27 | Bond lesson #23: Always be wary of the balloon seller. |
| 1:06:39 | Nooooo, not the friend. Always the friend. |
| 1:06:52 | Also, balloon rage is not so scary. |
| 1:15:27 | "It's the first time I've ever been grateful James Bond is a good shot." |
| 1:21:48 | You can't open a transplant box on the airfield and expect it to be sterile. |
| 1:34:37 | This guy basically has his own laugh track following him around. |
| 1:49:59 | Windscreen wipers as a weapon! |
| 1:53:38 | This Bond girl veers from being brilliant to being the absolute worst. |
| 1:57:09 | He said fly level and straight, he didn't say anything about steering clear of mountains. |
| 2:06:05 | I'm sure Stradivarious would have something to say about a bullet hole in his cello. |
Thoughts
I was concerned about watching the two Dalton films, mostly because I didn't know anything about his or Lazenby's efforts, and the latter wasn't exactly an outstanding Bond contender. Thankfully, Timothy was a heck of a lot better. He was just as good at hiding his accent as Sean Connery, but made up for it with a stern intensity that Roger Moore had been completely missing.
He seemed slightly less creepy when it came to interacting with females, although it's still Bond so you have to expect a degree of womanising. I couldn't decide whether I liked this Bond girl or not, she was quite fun and brave in places, but equally clingy and annoying in others. Hard to tell.
I thought the plot was much more grounded than some of the others. Rather than a diabolical story about setting up a new race of humans on an off-earth settlement, we're talking about defecting spies, arms dealers and drugs rackets. It was great fun to see the Gogol cameo at the end, too.
Overall, I think it wasn't a particularly memorable Bond outing, but thankfully there was nothing really wrong with it either - which is a lot to ask from a brand new actor playing such an iconic character.
Rating: 3 / 5
