Doesn't even seem like a Bond film - Licence to Kill (1989) Discussion

[–] FilmKoala 9 years ago

I agree and disagree. You have a point, before QoS this was the least "Bond" of all the films in this series. But it still has many Bond film elements and it's a great movie.

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[–] elaineevans7 9 years ago

even though this film was too violent, it is an underrated Bond film!

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[–] mikeyg24 9 years ago

I think it's a feature of the Dalton Bonds. Usually the villains and their plots were far fetched, completely implausible if not impossible. Here we have a South American drug dealer, hatching a drug deal. The Living Daylights we have an arms dealer, dealing arms and a diamond smuggler, smuggling diamonds, it's stuff you read about in the paper.

Still great movies in their own right and top notch action, it's just the Bond feel is a little watered down.

I've had a lot of sobering thoughts in my time Del Boy, it's them that started me drinking!

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[–] greenbudgie 9 years ago

I think it was over packed with action. I carried on through to the end of the film. But I was finding it a bit tedious to watch long before the umpteenth explosion in the film. All action is not enough to sustain my interest.

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[–] speccyboy 9 years ago

It feels a bit like an extended episode of Miami Vice which happens to star James Bond (if that makes sense).

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[–] machtundrebel 9 years ago

It does

Before Mozart, all ambition turns to despair. - Charles Gounod

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[–] dr-ghall1138 9 years ago

It took a downward turn after the Honeymoooooooooooon.

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[–] beavertoof 7 years ago

It feels a bit like an extended episode of Miami Vice which happens to star James Bond (if that makes sense)

^^This is how I felt watching it too. I know somehow alot of people really like this one, but it just didn't do it for me.

Maybe if the budget had been higher it would have helped, the whole thing looked kinda like it was shot on a video camcorder or was shot as a television episode instead of a movie.

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[–] mistermycroft 7 years ago

With regard to the plot allegedly being "too ordinary", how many times can you have a villain threaten the world with a laser or try to destroy the world with nukes / nerve gas, which is pretty much what the 1970s Bond films were like ?

People criticize the drug smuggling plot of this, but isn't that what happened in Moore's LIVE AND LET DIE in 1973, and most people loved that film. Maybe it was the weird characters who made the difference

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[–] Verdugo85 8 years ago

I agree. Just make believe Bond is a tough police detective who gives up his badge to go after the druglord that escaped police custody and then maimed his CIA best friend and murdered the wife. This film is also an all American cast.

This is why some Bond fans that I know don't like this film but I like it and its way better than The Living Daylights, my opinion.

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[–] ethansconn 8 years ago

Yeah I was thinking the same thing, seemed more like an American 80s action flick.

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[–] king_cooler 8 years ago

It always makes me laugh when people say this because what does a Bond movie actually seem like?

There's been so many different styles and ingredients over the decades.

When most people think of a Bond movie they probably think of a big scale adventure with lots of gadgets like Goldfinger, Goldeneye and The Spy Who Loved Me but there's always been the more scaled down ones like From Russia With Love.

What about Daniel Craig's? Most of his seem more like the Bourne movies.

And Diamonds Are Forever is a spoof.

This has a character called Bond in it, Q's there doing his thing, and it has some great action. So it seems like a Bond movie. And moreso than a few others.

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[–] The_Ultimate_Hippo 8 years ago

The Bond films often borrowed from whatever was popular at the time. Moonraker borrowed from Star Wars, Live and Let Die borrowed from Blaxploitation films, Quantum borrowed from Jason Bourne and it seems like Licence to Kill borrowed from 80's action films like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon.

"I really wish Gia and Claire had became Tanner" - Honeybeefine

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[–] 7 years ago

[deleted]

[–] TMC-4 (19411) 6 years ago

Licence to Kill just feels very low-budget (almost as if the Cannon Group made a James Bond movie) with only a dash of sophistication due to having Timothy Dalton in the lead instead of say Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal:
http://debrief.commanderbond.net/topic/65496-how-does-licence-to-kill-stack-up-now/page-1.html#entry1336050

From Bond's off-the-rack wardrobe to Kamen's lackluster score, the down-to-earth plot, Glen's workmanlike direction, one guy's "death by a drawer full of cold, cooked pasta" and the almost complete lack of marketing here in the states, it just felt like "Bond on the cheap."

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[–] Quint (935) 6 years ago

That movie was a desaster back then, cause it almost hand no elements of Bond movies. This movie almost destroyed the Bond franchise.

When the Bond franchise restarted with Brosnan we thought that there never ever will a horrible Bond movie like License To Kill. And then the Craig "Bond" movies were released and we even began to like License To Kill (compared with the trash with Craig everythinf is pure gold).

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[–] Stratego (29251) 4 years ago

It kind of starts out that way, but later when the Bond girl and Q show up, it does feel like an actual Bond movie.

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