"The Living Daylights"

Too much change of location. Nice to see a new Bond, but a new director and writing team was also needed. Seems needlessly dragged out and a bit too tame in the sex department for a 007 romp. John Rhys-Davies was a welcome bit of emergency last moment casting. Hhe was called in to replace the Russian General Gogol character. The actor Walter Gotell sadly became too sick to perform all of the required lines and actions originally scripted for Gen. Gogol, so his character was given a small role at the end of the movie. A nice fresher John Barry score this time (his swan song for the series). No classic menacing master mind villain to hold things together in this film. Just a bunch of whiny and spoiled crooks. The new Money Penny was quite un-interesting and forgettable. Come on, Barry Manilow records? Dalton and she have no chemistry whatsoever. Also, this film has the worst Felix Lighter of them all. His inclusion was totally unnecessary, and totally miscast. Seems like they wanted to included everything they could think of to connect this to the rest of the series, including Max, the parrot from "For Your Eye's Only".