FanFiltration said:
"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".
"Lies spread by my competitors!" ;)
Most of this is true, but as more time passes, this stands out more and more as one of the classic canon titles. I just can't seem to get enough of this odd blend of film 007 and book 007 actually being an international spy who...gasp...actually spies...and feels pain...and broods...and has dark humor...and is serious...and dangerous...and human...and a killer.
This is Glen's best Bond hands down. Top notch on the look, feel, and the gall to have such and odd rhythm that straddles the line between movie and reality. To come from the tried-and-true/trying to be a throwback/way too tired and low budget final Moore films to this is like downing three Americanos in the morning.
Leiter is beyond awful and just thrown in, Moneypenny 2.0 takes time to get used to but it works if you're not really scrutinizing (But Barry Manilow? Ugh!), the plot was a bit confused because they were never sure who they were writing for or what the production was-but this one has Richard Maibaum cutting loose and penning some golden moments (Sorely missing from Licence to Kill), Barry's score is one of my all time favorites, the villains aren't very menacing but overall the whole story feels as if it could be real and that it must in order to have a sense of immediacy and odd for a Bond film-poignancy.
And this is really coming out of Dalton's performance, which as a lifelong Bond fan (who loathes the Craig films, rereads the Fleming novels regularly, and is kooky enough to think that the 67 Casino Royale is some kind of bizarre pop-art masterwork of insanity) is one of the finest in all the films. It's markedly different, and certainly the Bond of the 80's. He got a raw deal, and is one of those really underrated actors who never got to capitalize on their talent in films.
I think I may have seen this too much. It may have something to do with being one of the Bond films I could never find as a kid, and then going overboard once I had a copy.
The little moments are so good-The opening straight out of the short story, Bond going back for Kara's Strad, The Aston returns, Bond smoking and mockingly blowing it into the air during Koskov's "debriefing", Bond and M inter-fighting, Bond thinking for himself, Smiert Spionam, Bond and Pushkin, the chloral hydrate and the end of the plane fight.
"We're free!"
"Kara, we're on a Russian airbase in the middle of Afghanistan."