The Living Daylights (1987)

Plot: Timothy Dalton is suave and lethal as superagent James Bond in this turbo-charged action/adventure that pulls out the stops for excitement. Armed with a gadget-laden Aston Martin and his license to kill, Agent 007 must stop a terrifying weapons conspiracy that may be linked to the Soviet military high command!

Firsts: Timothy Dalton as Bond, Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny

Gadgets: Loaded Aston Martin, key chain with knockout gas and explosives, and binocular eyeglasses

Girls Bond slept with: Girl on yacht (presumed), Kara Milovy

Elaborate murder attempt that Bond escapes: None really, although Bond did hang out of a cargo plane while fighting a henchman

Personal review: I feel that Dalton often gets a bad rap as Bond, but then I watch his films again and he makes it so difficult for me to defend him. And it is easy to lay the criticism on his seriousness. Even if it's not intentional it always looks like he has a scowl on his face. That makes it difficult to enjoy when he's delivering lines about salt corrosion is to blame for a police car's dismantling after he destroyed it with a laser. But I feel like a lot of the criticisms that are often put on Dalton, could be said about Daniel Craig, except that I think Craig has been an excellent Bond thus far.

So where does the blame lie? Well Dalton was done no favors here with the story. The evil plot is strong from a relevancy perspective here. I felt like I was watching Charlie Wilson's War again with the whole Afghan/Russia arms issue. But the nuts and bolts of the story aren't really explained well and seem overly complex.

Along with that the villains are a major disappointment. Joe Don Baker as crazed arms dealer Brad Whitaker and Jerden Krabbe as Georgi Koskov are decent character actors, but they aren't menacing enough here. I think worst of all is that they really have no major beef with Bond. Bond goes through this film relatively unscathed. Things are much more interesting when the villain is equally concerned with killing Bond and completing their evil scheme.

The disappointment with the villains though are nothing compared with the film's choice for its Bond girl. Maryam D'abo as Kara Milovy is a personality vaccuum. She's neither sexy nor tough, which just leaves helpless; the worst category of Bond girls. The fact that Bond is smitten with her from the get go and never fools around with anyone else makes it even more depressing. How can we root for this Bond when he's not hated by his villains and has such terrible taste in women?

I thought the action in here was solid. The opening scene involving Bond fighting the assassin in the flaming jeep was good. And the stuntwork done during the scenes where they are fighting outside the cargo plane is top notch. But the exciting action is offset by the dull locales. Vienna, Tangiers, and Afghanistan aren't the most exciting locales for a film.

There just ends up being nothing in this film that truly gets you amped up. This is clear from the get-go with the lifeless and forgettable Living Daylights theme. Even though most of the Bond trademarks are in this film, this felt very generic and could have been any action film. The film avoids any eye-rolling bad moments, but if I'm going to pick a Bond film to watch for fun, I'm not apt to choose this one.

One final thing, in the scene where Koskov is 'captured' after defecting, what happened to Bond, M and the Minister? They are all talking to him and then in the next scene, their headquarters is attacked, Koskov is taken and none of them are seen. Did I miss something here or was this poor editing on the director's part. 7/10