The Living Daylights (1987)

Quite simply put The Living Daylights is one of the best James Bond films they have ever made & if Wilson & co are smart they'll do more like this one.

Having decided to give up the role of 007 in 1985 Roger Moore stepped down,Moore had saved the series in the early 70's but had stayed in the role a movie to long(they should have left it with the excellent Octopussy),the hunt was now on for a new actor who could take the role into the 90's....Thankfully Dalton was the man they found. As soon as he got the part Dalton went straight back to the source material..ie Ian Fleming's novels & it shows on the screen...the bond in the Living Daylights is the Bond character jumping right out of the books.

The film really shows how keen everyone involved in it wanted to say that this was a fresh start but at the same time still show that this is a Bond picture & they pull it off very well..John Glen's direction is excellent,he really found his feet by now & all the aspects of the film are done well...A special mention must also go to John Barry who's score for the film is one of his best...oh if only they couyd bring him back rather than have his clone do the new ones....

Timothy Dalton is very much undervalued in his contribution to the Bond movies but i do feel that in about 10 years & his films will be seen in a different light on how they are looked on today. The producers of the Bond movies really need to do the same again now as they did back in 1987...make Bond a character & no more films like Die Another Day..OK it made them tons of money but is it worth selling the sole of Bond to do it..... Give the role to Clive Owen & make Bond a character again.

Fmovies: Watching the Living Daylights, I can see that Dalton was *far* superior to Roger Moore. Moore was just a clown, looking for his next joke. When Moore wanted to quit after 1979's Moonraker, they should have let him go.

But Dalton brought a serious side to the role. You can see that he's determined to get the job done, and realizes he could be dead any minute, so he focuses on the mission and not clowning. Just like Sean Connery did back in the 60's.

---> As for the actual story, that too is serious & well-written. One of Bond's long-term enemies, Russian KGB Commander Pushkin, has crossed the line and is actively killing off agents. (To quote the movie "He's gone mental like Stalin.") Bond is tasked to search out & kill Pushkin, but Bond refuses because he knows Pushkin & knows he'd never cross the line like that. Instead, Bond suspects someone else inside the KGB is setting up Pushkin for a fall.

And thus begins a long adventure to discover the mystery man behind the killings. And like I said earlier, Dalton does an *excellent* job in this role. I highly recommend his movies. 10/10

I just spent the weekend watching nine Bond movies, many of which I hadn't seen in years. When you see that many back to back, it makes comparison easier and each movie's strengths and weaknesses stand out.. After finishing, I realized that The Living Daylights was much better than my memory had perceived it. (I also felt the same about OHMSS). The plot is great with many twists and turns. Tim Dalton brings a very intense Bond to the screen and in this movie it works. I thought MaryAnn D'abo was a very good female lead. We also see a new Moneypenny. The only drawback to the movie is that the villains were somewhat weak. Overall, I now feel The Living Daylights is in the very top tier of the Bond movies.

The Living Daylights fmovies. At the end of thirteen years of comedic 007 adventures, opinions among many fans were for a return to the more serious films of the early Connery era. The hopes of fans were realized with this film that began a new era in the world of 007.

Timothy Dalton is perhaps the closest actor in terms of vision to Ian Fleming's idea of Bond. He certainly looks the part, with his scalp of wild black hair and his piercing blue eyes, and can actually visualize 007. Just look when Bond is at the fair, having lost Saunders's murderer amongst the crowd and found the balloon with Smyert Spionam scrawled over them. This guy can act. Despite this being his first film as Bond, we get the feeling that he's been playing the part for years with his mastering of the character. Dalton is also great in the action sequences and his belief that he should do as many of his stunts as possible makes it hard to determine when its him and when its a stuntman.

The change continues on with the Bond girl Kara Milovy. Maryam d'Abo may not have had a lot of acting experience before this but she is a good actress. Her character goes far beyond being just eye candy. She's realistic. She's an average woman who is drawn into this world on intrigue, action, and danger. Kara is an innocent brought into it all by a man she cares for deeply and whom she owes everything to. She is also very beautiful and while she isn't the smartest Bond girl of them all, her gradual relationship with Bond provides one of the series few true love stories.

If the film has a fault in it, it would have to be the villains. While both Jeroen Krabbe and Joe Don Baker are great actors, this isn't there shinning moment. Both of the characters of General Georgi Koskov and Brad Whitaker are too UN-villain like to be bad guys. Any menace that Koskov might have had is ruined by the fact that he is constantly kissing everyone on the cheek. Brad Whitaker is also too weird to be a villain. He is in many respects the ultimate military historian and in another the craziest. At least unlike Koskov, he does have a great final showdown with Bond during the fantastic gun battle at the films end.

The supporting cast is also excellent. Andreas Wisniewski is great as Necros. He is menacing and despite being an obvious take on Red Grant from FRWL, he manages to be original. John Rhys-Davies and Art Malik are fantastic as the allies of the film. Both actors are initially suspicious to us, but when they are revealed as allies they are the ones we want on Bond's side. Too bad we didn't see more of them. And let's not forget Thomas Wheatley as Saunders. He is the ultimate bureaucratic agent. But he can get the job done and he's so good that when he becomes the film's sacrificial lamb we feel for his loss. As for Caroline Bliss and John Terry it is hard to find good things to say. Both were replacements for well-known and beloved characters in the series and it wasn't going to be easy. Here they failed. Neither has enough screen time to establish them in the parts and when they are on screen they are lousy at best.

The action sequences are among the best in the series. The teaser featuring the training exercise and later chase on Gibraltar was the best until Goldeneye. The car chase is not only the best car chase since FYEO but also the triumphant return of the classic Aston Martin. While the car has gadgets, they are at least believable and the chase features the classic scene of the police car being split in half and Bond a

One thing that can be said about Timothy Dalton's two appearances in the role of Bond is that both efforts where excellent.

This one is more in the traditional Bond mould than the much darker Licence To Kill that followed it but was still quite a fresh, well scripted and acted story.

It is a bit of a shame that the original plan to have General Gogol throughout rather than General Pushkin had to be dropped due to Walter Gottel being unavailable but even still, John Rhys Davies does well in his role.

Bond girl Myriam D'Abo is a great improvement on her immediate predecessor even if she does not have a huge amount to do and the quality of the photography, particularly the Afghanistan sequences, are excellent.

Unlike many of the Roger Moore Bond's there was a fresh air of originality here unlike previous efforts, which in many ways where bits of old Bonds remixed, reheated and served up.

It is also a refreshing change from the previous A View To A Kill to not have Bond bedding everything female in sight for once!! AVTAK produced four conquests for the rampant fossilised babe magnet (!) Moore, here just the one and discreet at that.

Thankfully silly gimmicks such as another of M's silly offices (Back of a Hercules plane this time following previous instalments in a submarine, Egyptian ruin, sunken ocean liner and a monastery!) were dispensed with quickly and never really seen in the Bond series again after this.

A cracking soundtrack from John Barry (quite possibly his best)finishes off this excellent instalment, which saw the farewell performances of two more stalwarts of the Bond series, Walter Gottel in an all too brief cameo as General Gogol and soundtrack master extraordinaire John Barry (he actually appears here as the orchestra conductor at the Opera House at the very end).

All in all a really good oneÂ…Â…

The Living Daylights is directed by John Glen and adapted to screenplay by Ricahrd Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson from an Ian Fleming story. It stars Timothy Dalton, Maryam d'Abo, Jeroen Krabbe, Brad Whitaker, John Rhys-Davies, Joe Don Baker and Art Malik. Music is scored by John Barry and cinematography by Alec Mills.

Bond 15 and 007 is assigned to Bratislava to help in the defection of Soviet General Kosov from the Iron Curtain. But pretty soon Bond is mired in a plot involving arms, opium and assassinations.

With Moore retired the search for a new Bond invariably came down to two names who had been mentioned in Bond circles before, Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton. TV schedules and commitments would play a part and eventually Dalton got the role and eagerly he read up on Fleming's novels to ensure he had a grasp on the beloved Secret Agent. In spite of many misconceptions about Dalton's tenure in the tuxedo, his take was stripped back and closer to Fleming's literary source, his intense acting style ensuring Bond was getting back to the thriller realm.

The Living Daylights is a great Bond movie, mostly devoid of stupid sight gags and cheese laden quips, it sees Bond back to indulging in glorious fist fights, using brains and brawn to achieve his ends, and with Dalton putting the arrogant swagger back into the man, Bond is sexy and dangerous again. The plot is intelligent, operating on three fronts and spanning across the continents, production values are immense, Barry's final score is a knockout, one of his most atmospheric and the title song by Norwegian pop darlings, a-ha, is energy supreme and became a monster chart hit. Glen's action direction is practically peerless, including an excellent pre-credit sequence (where a training exercise turns bloody) and a mano mano fight between Bond and a baddie aboard an in flight cargo plane, the latter of which is a series highlight. Maryam d'Abo is a good Bond girl, making Kara Milovy brave but also sweetly innocent, the pairing of Dalton and d'Abo works very well.

Where the picture mainly falls down is with the villains, who are just too lightweight to amp up the peril within the plot. Krabbe and Baker are far from being bad or even average actors, but they rarely offer a threat to Bond and it's a stretch to imagine they could seriously trouble him. Elsewhere, Robert Brown continues to lack an edge in the role of M and Caroline Bliss steps into the Moneypenny shoes vacated by Lois Maxwell and struggles to make an impact because the script doesn't allow her too. Big crime, too, is having Felix Leiter finally return only for him to be underwritten and performed by a dull actor (John Terry). One misstep in the film 's plotting sees Bond and Milovy escape from danger by using a Cello case as a sledge, it looks daft and feels like it belongs in one of Roger Moore's cartoonish Bond movies. Much has been made of Dalton being uncomfortable saying the quips, and that's right, it does show, but that is a world away from the Bond he wanted to play. I do wonder if this screenplay was tailored towards Brosnan, who was inches away from getting the gig? Or even a holdover from a script written with Moore in mind?

No matter, Dalton ushered in a Bond of class and intensity and the worldwide box office chimed to the tune of over $190 million, nearly $50 million more than Moore's last film, A View to a Kill. Critics were mixed on the film and with Dalton's take on the Bond role, they failed to see it w