This is quite a rant so click away now if you're not interested in thorough opinions...
'Licence to Kill' ...has it's moments - original pre-credits, good thug, gritty story & one of the best aquatic sequences in a bond film (the 'WaveCrest' boat/plane scene) - but ultimately it fell short due to some sloppy scripting in parts (the scene between Q and the two girls in the hotel is exceptionally cringeworthy) and weak female roles (the worst since TMWTGG i.m.o).
It did not, I'm afraid, feel or run like a Bond film (and before you shout "oooh you philestine - just because it didnt have a fantasy car with gadgets and lots of stupid puns scripted in..!" Keep yer shirt on - because neither did 'Casino Royale', and that really did feel like a Bond-film)
It was a half-decent attempt at creating a story in the tone of Fleming's books, which, though a nice gesture, EON just didn't quite manage to do. Don't get me wrong - I really WANTED to like LTK... but ended up only warming to parts of it.
Dalton was not to blame - he carried the series when other franchises grew stronger and out-box-officed Bond. (think Die Hard, Batman, Indiana J, Back to the Future et al.)
He was quite simply the true incarnation of Ian Fleming's anti-hero, and the best actor to have taken it on so far (better even than Craig, yes).
For a few mintues on the silver screen in 1987, Timothy Dalton 'was' 007. To expand: the opening scene of 'The Living Daylights' (after the Gibraltar pre-credits), where 007 meets with his ally to protect Koskov during his defection, is the one (and perhaps only) piece of cinema that truly reflects the literary James Bond. When I (and trust me, many fellow Bond-nuts) read the books, Dalton is 007.
But legal wranglings led to six years without Dalton showing what he could really do if he were given the 'Bond formula' with a script tailored to his strenghts...
'GoldenEye' ...was, to me as a then 14 year-old adolecent, the greatest Bond film ever to grace the screen. Of course, I revised this opinion a few years later after having seen the other outings and reading some of Fleming's better stories (LALD, FRWL & OHMSS for those who are interested), but in 1995 I was blown away by Brosnan. His smirking, 'look at me' kind of arrogance appealed to me at the time, though I went on to loathe him in the subsequent films.
One factor that contributed to me not liking the rest of Brosnan's outings has to be the scripts. GoldenEye though had a decent one - it was grittier than Brosnan could really handle.
He managed well enough but, truth be told, his lack of range & physicality show at times. The "Kill her..." in the train, the "No... for ME" at the film's climax... all suited to Dalton's take on 007.
The pre credits' is one of the series' best, and the film does actually have a decent screenplay, unlike it's younger siblings. Brosnan excells in the face to face verbal jousting, but he just doesn't cut the mustard when he has to be imposing or act outside of his comfort zone (read: facial smirk, then pun... shortly followed by another, slightly altered, facial smirk). He's not entirely comfortable doing action, and thus is more Moore than Connery to my mind. An overriding neccesity for a believable 007 must surely be that he can be tough when the need arises?!
His über-bland mid-atlantic accent doesn't really do him any favours either. Why couldn't he at least TRY to sound 'Public school' English?
But wait, this isn't an excercise in Brosnan-bashing. I genuinely think he saved the franchise from Cold War exile, and his immediate begign mass-appeal - coupled with that (mildly irritatingly) suave charm of his helped to put 007 back on the movie-map. I just sort of expected the guy to 'evolve' the role a bit more than he did.
He could have gone from strength to strength after 1995, but instead he indulged the 'lowest-common-denominator' screenplays & scripts put before him beneath heaps of cash and said 'thanks very much', instead of investing some time and professional pride in moulding the James Bond character and pressuring the producers into delivering better stories.
Perhaps this is unfair. Maybe Brosan just lacks judgement and efficiently hides the fact that he's not the brightest spark in the industry behind that sticky charm of his. I think that he was, quite possibly, simply pleased to be along for the ride and didn't want the party to end for a few films yet.
Unlike Daniel Craig, who is dead-serious about further development of the character he has taken on so convincingly...
The best of the two?
Licence to Kill, though only just(suprise you there, eh). Admittedly I enjoyed GoldenEye more upon first viewing, but LTK had the one overriding factor that any 007 movie needs : a good James Bond (well, duh?)
Because no matter how well a film does at the bank, or how entertaining it is - the one thing that MAKES a James Bond movie is having the leading man well portrayed (why else do people still rate You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever as half-decent Bond films? Cause they had Connery. Other than that they were dismal.
And Dalton almost pips him to the title... almost :-)
"Imagine a world with no hypothetical questions..."
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GoWallAndBeal
14 years ago
Goldeneye was my personal favorite of the whole franchise, but LTK is in my top 5.
"Have you ever felt a knife cut through human flesh and scrape the bone beneath?" -Ghostface
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balthazar_bee
12 years ago
'GoldenEye' ...was, to me as a then 14 year-old adolecent, the greatest Bond film ever to grace the screen.
I have to say, at 15, I think I just missed what you're describing. I had seen Dalton's films on VHS repeatedly by the time I bought my ticket to GoldenEye, and Brosnan felt rather milquetoast by comparison. In fact, that's was the overriding impression I had of the film in general: blah. Compared to the fury of Licence to Kill's personal vendetta, the whole 006 betrayal just didn't do it for me. Dare I say it...boring?
It's a shame, because there are things I like about GoldenEye -- the pre-credits sequence, Sean Bean, Robbie Coltrane, the lingering aftertaste of the Cold War, the spectacular hand-to-hand fight at the end -- but I don't watch it very often. Whereas I continue to watch LTK regularly, always with something like rapt fascination.
But it just goes to show you how important casting is: replace Brosnan with Dalton and I'd almost certainly be a believer. As things are, I can only shake my head in wonder at the people who suggest that GoldenEye even holds a candle to a movie like Casino Royale.
The N64 game was pretty boss though.
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Quint (935)
6 years ago
There was no legal wrangling. Dalton almost killed the Bond franchise. Cause he was the worst Bond until that point in time. He wasnt Bond at all, cause he was Flemings Bond. And noone out there give a sh*t about this dead and incredible incompetent author. All he did was writing boring cold war era books. Thos books would have never been sold even a decade later wouldnt have people read it just cause of the Bond movie. Bond only started to become famous when Fleming was kicked out of the franchise, cause he never understood what Bond was. So stating "xxx is like Flemings Bond" is essentially stating "This is the biggest loser of all and gonna kill the franchise".
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