007 Journals: The Living Daylights

Well I finally made it through the Roger Moore era of James Bond and into the short lived Timothy Dalton run. Now I've never seen any of the Dalton films before. I feel like these are the least talked about Bond movies from within my social circle, so I was a little more in the dark going into The Living Daylights. The only thing I've really heard about these two films is that they are darker than previous Bond movies, but I will say that this one didn't really get that dark so that must be more License to Kill. Now up until this point Bond has been on a wide variety of missions, but most of them ended up being big bombastic battles with super villain like bad guys. The Living Daylights brings it down a little which is something that I really appreciated. One thing I love is the use of the Russian's "Death To Spies" mantra that was in the books but has been absent from the films. While it makes for a great plot set up, this unfortunatly gets dropped quickly. I would have liked this film a lot more if it was about just trying to stop a plot of Russian assassins trying to elliminate British spies, but in the end I still ended up liking the movie quite a bit.

The first thing to talk about here is Dalton, the new Bond. Now that I have seen all of the Bond actors I can finally say with assurance that Daniel Craig is the best James Bond. I get it, everyone loves Connery because he was the first, hes amazing, there is nostalgia, and yada yada yada. Craig is everything I imagine Bond to be and maybe it's just beacuse he was in some of the best films in a more modern era of film making, but when I read the books and think of the character, Craig fits that image the best. However I think I would put Dalton pretty high on that list. I think it's a real shame that he only made it to two films because I would really like to see what he could have done with more movies. First of all him and Pierce Brosnan look pretty similar to me and carry themselves pretty much the same. I could easily pluck Brosnan out of Goldeneye and replace him with Dalton and it would still be an amazing movie (we'll get there). With this movie being more grounded and serious I think Dalton fits the bill very well. He has a good look and there is something so suave about him. The only thing I noticed against his performace is that he always seems to have this smile on his face like he's just so happy to be in this movie. Honestly though he should be.

The plot . . . is not perfect. It's not bad. It starts off great, becomes servicable, and then ends with a bang. It goes through some ups and downs but never crosses the border into boring or absurdity. We start off with some real great spy stuff. We have 007 and some other \agents in a training excercise and his comrades are killed by a Russian assassin and leaves the note "death to spies." It's great, I love it. Then we have Bond trying to help a Russian defector make it to England. Awesome! Then the defector is re-kidnapped by the Russians. Wow this is intense! Of course everything turns out to be a ruse by the defector. A twist! Aaaaand everything starts to get a little convaluted from there. Bond tricks the defectors girlfriend into falling in love with him and we get a long period where Bond is just taking her on dates. I like the arc of her character and she's played wonderfully by the beautiful Maryam d'Abo but this period of the movie drags slightly. While I always love Bond as a man who will use anyone to get a mission done I just feel like this part of the movie could have been better written, though I could see myself enjoying this section more on a re-watch.

With this movie being more serious in tone, there are some moments that don't seem to fit and all of them pretty match happen during and after the car chase early on in the movie. First is bond cutting a car in half with a laser from his car. This feels like a campy Roger Moore moment and kind of ate at me inside. Then Bond drives his car around with a shack stuck around it on ice. Slightly less ridiculous so I'll buy it, until only moments afterwards where he cuts the ice with his bare tire and causes another vehicle to fall through the ice, THEN he has a ski come out of the side so he can keep driving. All of this is followed by a sled ride on a cello case. This all happens in about one ten minute chunk and almost had me spitting out anything I would have been drinking. Luckily all of these moments were packed together early on and left for you to quickly forget about them. What we do get in this movie are some great action scenes. The cold open for isntance has a parachute jump into a testing combat situation followed by Bond on top of a speeding truck trying to get the assassin. It's a great opening and shows us Dalton's action presence which I approve of. I will say there's not a lot of gun play throughout the film, especially from Bond who barely uses his Walther. The end of the movie does however evolve into a giant gun fight on a runway with Russians fighting Taliban like allies of Bond. They were the good guys then, remember? This movie came out in 1987, after such films like Commando and the first two Rambo films so I felt like the ending battle was trying to emulate the explosive action of the 80's and it really nailed it in my opinion.

The Living Daylights is a great Bond film and I love Dalton. I can't really get much clearer than that. One final thing I'd like to point out is that it was weird having seen this movie after having seen Goldeneye in the past and having Joe Don Baker play a bad guy in this and a good guy in Goldeneye. The reuse of actors in different roles is nothing new in Bond movies but this one really stood out to me and I wonder if it was the inverse when people watching all of the movies saw Goldeneye for the first time. I give The Living Daylights a four out of five. Maybe it's just the excitment of getting out of the Moore era but this film really did it for me and I can't wait to see how License To Kill fares.