So. Dalton. When I first got into Bond, it took me ages to see Dalton's films. I only saw a few Connerys and Moores. When I finally got around to seeing his films, I'd already read some of the books, and I found that Dalton played a very adequate book Bond, but didn't sacrifice the feel of the films too much.
The Living Daylights is a pretty cool film. You can certainly tell at times that it was originally written as a Moore film, but it still retains the harder edge that Dalton brought to the series. I love the opening shots, because I always love seeing other Double Ohs, though of course none of them ever live up to Bond's high standards (save one). This is also the only Bond film with only one Bond girl, if I'm not mistaken (I guess there's the girl on the boat at the beginning, though); Kara is an okay girl, I suppose... she doesn't really do that much and kinda just waits around for stuff to happen to her until she runs off to save James at the airfield at the end which just seems out of character for her. Rhys-Davies is great as Pushkin; and there's really palpable tension in the scene with him and Bond in the hotel room. Georgi is a pretty complex and interesting character as well with the whole double-reverse-defection thing going on; he goes from "oh boy one of these goofy characters, ugh" to a brilliant criminal mastermind during the course of the film, which I like. Necros is of course our Red Grant for this film. And Joe Don Baker (Mitchell!) as Whitaker was another of those characters that was hard to get over considering he comes back as Jack Wade later on. Saunders I always feel bad for; he was finally getting the hand of things at the end, too. I never was a big fan of the Aston Martin they used, but it didn't look as bad as it used to this time around. The Mujahideen are a cool angle, the airplane cargo fight is a cool one, and the cello sled is good times. Also has a sweet 80's music theme by a-Ha.
License to Kill is one of my favourites. I love the more personal, "departure" Bonds like OHMSS and License to Kill because they're different than the same-old-same-old Bond formula, and I feel like they're really some of the few films that Bond does any real character development in; in OHMSS, he learned he can't ever be anything but 007 of MI6, and in License to Kill, he attacks M, goes rogue on a vendetta; and yet they still manage to do it without completely alienating the Bond feel (in my view) there's still cars, gadgets, allies, chases, henchmen, et cetera, all the "Bondian Elements". This one really puts a spotlight on Bond's misogyny, which is an interesting angle. Pam is a Bond girl who also feels like she's capable and smart (but they go a bit far in proving she's "still feminine" with her out-of-character pining for Bond), Q gets to put on his field agent pants as he goes "rogue" himself to help Bond (and also seems to have a disregard for his own equipment as he chucks the broom radio into the bushes). Dalton gets the emotion of the Leiters' attack over well (though Felix seems a bit chipper in the phone call at the end of the film, all things considered) Sanchez is cool and dangerous and plays the quintessential drug lord, Benicio del Toro is insane and dangerous and a neat henchman. Krest is slimy and weird as he should be, and having grown up fishing I could always tell the "maggots" were lures. I always feel bad for Sharkey, but I always almost cheer when Bond gets revenge for him, too. Wayne Newton makes a good cameo, and Lupe provides some scenery and intel but not much else. The title song is pretty great, and is a nice throwback to older Bond songs (especially thanks to the Goldfinger inspiration) though I wonder what Clapton's version was like.
Well these are getting longer, I guess... Oh well. I should start formatting them into paragraphs, but no.
Goodbye, Dalton. On to Brosnan!