A Review Of “The Living Daylights”

January 3, 2007 @ 7:00 am by Pressed

Bond: Timothy Dalton
Produced by: Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
Directed by: John Glen
Date Released: 1987
Budget: $30 Million

This is the fifteeth movie in the official James Bond 007 series. This is the first movie in the series to star Timothy Datlon as James Bond. It is also known as one of the last Fleming originals, based off of one of his short stories published in 1962.

Plot: Bond attempts to prevent an assassination and the assassin ends up being a beautiful blonde cellist. This is the story of a renegade Russian general who is basically putting himself up against the Western powers.

One of the most memorable scenes is the Astin Martin car chase scene. The car has rockets and a laser that cuts cars in half. Bond manages to be chased by tanks and turns the car into a “snowmobile” before he finally gets stuck and has to “self-destruct”. A sad end to such a beautiful car.

I didn’t think I would like Timothy Dalton as Bond, but he actually works really well. Dalton brings a new face to Bond. He is a serious, hard edged, conflicted, Bond who seemed more like a real man rather than a larger than life superhero. The other significant change in Bond with Dalton is that he has a more steady relationship with a girl, rather than womanizing every girl he can find. Dalton breaths refreshing new life into Bond.

Review: I really liked the beginning scenes of this movie because it was the fast pace, action packed beginning that I am so used to and the effects and stunts were really good too. The 80’s, however, brought us a lot of things, some good and some bad. The 80’s music is definatly prevelant in this movie and I found it interesting that the big fat cheese factor showed up in the film too. The 80’s seemed to be the year that cheese was made. The earlier Bond films didn’t really have that type of appeal, but it certainly showed up in this movie in the same way that it has made it into a couple of the newer Bond releases. While I agree with Q (Desmond Llewelyn) who says that it can’t be a James Bond movie without fantasy, I believe you can have fantasy without making it silly or cheesy. Because of this I felt the movie could have been better. With that being said, I still thought it was really good and one I will watch again.

Rating: B +

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