Living Daylights
One has to feel bad for Timothy Dalton: Chosen to (thankfully) replace Roger Moore as James Bond 007, and he winds up getting saddled with perhaps the worst film in the whole series, featuring a bad script, lousy and underdeveloped villains, and a decidedly below average Bond girl by series standards. Dalton certainly did his best to distinguish his Bond from Moore, Lazenby, and Connery as perhaps a darker, more brooding version of the character, but is still given some lame wisecracks and no discernible development which in many ways forces him to go through the motions of the character. At times it almost seems as though the producers purposely sabotaged him so as to ensure him being a “placeholder” Bond before Pierce Brosnan was brought in (Brosnan had originally been offered the role, but was still obligated to the TV show Remington Steele at the time). Here Bond is given the assignment of bringing in a Russian general who wishes to defect to the West with valuable information, but instead learns that it was a dupe and the general is actually in league with an American arms dealer in order to pull off a big transaction involving guns, diamonds, and drugs. In fact, given its year of release (1987), the whole master plan comes off as a lame parody of the Iran-Contra controversy of the time (otherwise known as The Closest They Could Come Up With To Nailing Reagan With Some Kind Of A Scandal Which The American People Then Proceeded To Not Give Two Shits About), and the lack of any real importance or any imminent threat lowers the story’s propulsion down to zero. We know we’re in trouble early here with a not-so-rousing precredits sequence followed by a very forgettable theme song by a-ha, and then the introduction of a new actress as well playing Miss Moneypenny where the transition is about as subtle as a rusty machete. Even Desmond Llewelyn’s Q, normally one of the more livelier parts of the series, seems pretty bored and disinterested this time out. And then there are the bad guys, whom the script seems VERY confused about which one is supposed to be the lead: Jeroen Krabbe as the Russian general comes off as hammy and too jovial, and goes down as one of the most non-threatening, non-menacing villains in franchise history (so much so that he is actually ARRESTED at the film’s conclusion instead of killed); while Joe Don Baker as the arms dealer DOES make the most out of limited screen time and is alot of fun to watch when he is on (especially with his little personal museum celebrating the history of warfare), but like was mentioned, is given so little screen time and not much at all to do that it really seems like a wasted opportunity. Then there is the Bond girl herself as played by Maryam d’Abo: Sporting a Russian accent as she spouts broken English and possessing the European heroin chic look to her, she comes off as one of the lamest and least likable Bond girls in the series, and her feeble attempts to make 007 more “romantic” around her is stuff that has been done better (and more convincingly) earlier in the series. The film does sport some good stuntwork and cinematography (especially a fight scene off the back of an airplane), but then there is the plot dynamic late in the film where Bond pulls a Rambo 3 and winds up joining forces with the “brave”, “noble” people of Afghanistan against the all-evil Russian menace, leading to a prolonged, pointless battle scene between the Russians and Afghans and making the whole affair seem horribly dated in the post-9/11 era. All in all, a very unfortunate way for Dalton to begin his run, though thankfully he would gain some ground back in the next film in the series…
4/10