I rewatched Timothy Dalton's second Bond outing; the Death Wish-esquire Licence to Kill recently and really enjoyed it. The Living Daylights is more of a Bond film than the later one, but several little nuisances make the film not as good as it could have been. The plot is expansive and experienced Bond director John Glen does a brilliant job of pacing the film so that the action scenes don't over weight the plot. However, sometimes the film gets a little too caught up in itself, and while it's good that Dalton brings more seriousness to the role and the film doesn't include a great deal of humour in his performance, films like this also need to be fun - and The Living Daylights isn't always. The plot focuses on the Russian KGB, and one of their generals - General Pushkin - who is suspected of killing off British secret service agents. Bond, however, doesn't believe this is so. Having known General Pushkin for years, he doesn't believe him to be psychotic and so begins searching for the actual culprit. Along for the ride is Kara Milovy - a cellist hired to kill her benefactor.
My main gripe with this film is the fact that there isn't really a villain. Bond globe trots all over the place, and this means that we don't get any focus, and while Joe Don Baker's Brad Whitaker is a nasty piece of work - he doesn't appear for long enough to be seen as a threat to Bond. The action sequences, when they appear, are a contender for the best of the entire series, however, and this does provide a distraction from the paltry villains. Sequences that involve Bond outrunning army vehicles in a customised Aston Martin, and the sequence on a cargo plane make for excellent entertainment. There's a fair few gadgets in this film too, and the modified car is sure to please Bond fans. As a result of the fact that there's quite a lot to it, the plot sometimes does become more than a little bit tiring, and I have to admit that I was beginning to get bored before the climatic ending. The scene where Bond finally meets his 'nemesis' is well worked, and if the rest of the film could have been just a little bit more 'closed' like that scene, I'd have liked it more. All that being said, The Living Daylights is definitely worth seeing. I don't consider myself a Bond fan really, but I still enjoyed it.
My main gripe with this film is the fact that there isn't really a villain. Bond globe trots all over the place, and this means that we don't get any focus, and while Joe Don Baker's Brad Whitaker is a nasty piece of work - he doesn't appear for long enough to be seen as a threat to Bond. The action sequences, when they appear, are a contender for the best of the entire series, however, and this does provide a distraction from the paltry villains. Sequences that involve Bond outrunning army vehicles in a customised Aston Martin, and the sequence on a cargo plane make for excellent entertainment. There's a fair few gadgets in this film too, and the modified car is sure to please Bond fans. As a result of the fact that there's quite a lot to it, the plot sometimes does become more than a little bit tiring, and I have to admit that I was beginning to get bored before the climatic ending. The scene where Bond finally meets his 'nemesis' is well worked, and if the rest of the film could have been just a little bit more 'closed' like that scene, I'd have liked it more. All that being said, The Living Daylights is definitely worth seeing. I don't consider myself a Bond fan really, but I still enjoyed it.