The Living Daylights
Cast & Credits
Actor Character
Timothy Dalton James Bond
Maryam d'Abo Kara Milovy
Jeroen Krabbe General Georgi Koskov
Joe Don Baker Brad Whitaker
Directed by John Glen
Original running time: 2 hours and 11 minutes
The search was on for a new James Bond after Roger Moore bowed out of the role following his seven movie run. After a global search, the producers of the series decided on a young Irish actor named Pirece Brosnan. His American television show Remington Steele was being cancelled which opened up the opportunity for him to portray the secret agent. In a strange move, NBC decided to bring the show back because they believed that all of the talk about Brosnan and Bond would give the show higher ratings. This bizarre turn of events left EON studios once again without a Bond. Everyone at the studio was extremely impressed with Sam Neill. Everyone but producer Albert Broccoli who had the final say so in the matter. His choice was Timothy Dalton who wasn't originally in the running because he was working on a movie named Brenda Starr with confilcting schedules. The Brosnan fiasco went on long enough for Dalton to have time to become Bond. Another interesting bit of trivia is that Dalton already had been offered the role twice before (for On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Live and Let DIe) and turned it down because he himself thought that he was too young. Would the third time be the charm?
After the gunbarrel sequence we see M talking to three double oh agents (with their backs to us) in a plane describing the training exercise that they are about to do on the rock of Gibraltar. They are to try to infiltrate a base there being protected by military personel armed with paint guns. After skydiving onto the rock, we see one of the agents "shot" immediately. Another is seen rock climbing. A note is sent down to him saying Smiert Spionam before his rope is cut and he falls to his death. Bond notices this and quickly pursues the assassin who hopped into a military truck. 007 leaps onto the top of the vehicle and eventually cuts his way through the top. This leads into a fist fight in the truck which eventually flies off of the highest point of the island. As it decends down toward the ocean Bond starts the explosives in the back on fire and then leaves via parachute. Where does he land? On a yacht which has a sunbathing beauty. He asks to use her phone and when he informs his superiors of what happened at that he'll repoart in an hour, the young lady asks if he'll join her. Bond then decides to tell them that he'll report in two hours. All in all this was a pretty good pre credits teaser with a good action sequence that gives Dalton a nice introduction.
The credits themselves are pretty standard fare for the Bond franchise which isn't a bad thingto me. Beautiful models with guns in water, shooting guns, and in martini glasses. During the credits we hear the theme song being performed by A-Ha. I have been told that they had several hits in Europe, but in America they are know for the song Take on Me which has one of the greatest music videos of all time. Basically, what I'm saying is that they are a band that's not known for their music. The song Take On Me is pretty catchy pop fluff, but this song isn't that good. The music is okay, but that singer's voice deosn't have the necessary punch for a Bond theme. Also, it doesn't help that this theme song is followng A view To A Kill. Despite my complaints, the song stacks up favorably when put up against most of the theme songs that have followed it. I hate to inform you guys that this is the last soundtrack that was done by John Barry. It is actually kind of an interesting one. He introduces electronic music into the mix while retaining big horns and the Barry sound. While it isn't even close to his best, it is still very good as all of them are. The man was a legendary composer and he will always be number one to me when it concerns Bond.
We next see Bond talking to an agent named Saunders from Section V - Vienna at an orchestra in Bratislava. A Russian general named Georgi Koskov is planning on defecting and Bond is assigned to liquidate a KGB sniper that is to shoot Koskov. Bond and Saunders set up shop across the street from the orchestra and wait for Koskov to make his way out of the concert hall. After quickly finding the KGB sniper, Bond is shocked to see that would be murderer of Georgi Koskov is actually a stunning young female cellist that caught his eye earlier. Instead of killing her, 007 shots the rifle out of her hands. When Saunders accuses James of missing on purpose he replies that she didn't know one end of the rifle from another. This entire section of the movie was taken directly from Ian Fleming's short story The Living Daylights and was extremely cool if you're a fan of the literary Bond. Fleming's writing was actually brought to the screen nearly word for word and not as liberally as it usually was. Anyhow, Bond leaves Saunders and picks up Georgi. Bond then helps Koskov get over the border with through unique methods set up by MI6.
Bond, Koskov, and MI6's top brass all meet at a safe house. After enjoying a delicious lunch and being kissed repeatedly by Georgi, James leaves. Shortly afterward, a milkman shows up. He looks to be about 6' 4", blonde haired, blue eyed, and to have under 5% body fat. Hmmm. As he's rocking out to the Pretenders he takes off his Walkman and chokes out the guy at the door. Yeah, I thought so... The guy's definitely a Bond villain. Next comes one of my favorite scenes of the movie. As he's approached by an agent with a gun he throws a milk bottle which explodes! Necros (that's the blonde guy's name) takes out several more guards with milk and hand to hand combat before abducting Koskov. Having no leads, M sends Bond to look for the sniper back in Bratislava. M also tells Bond about the Smiert Spionam note. It means death to spies and the words contracted make up Smersh, who are Bonds old Russian friends from his earliy career, Before leaving, Q equips Bond with a key finder that emits tear gas when you whistle the first bars of Rule Britannia and explodes if you do a wolf whistle. Also, we see that Moneypenny is now much younger and much worse at acting than Lois Maxwell.
Bond soon catches up with the cellist, Kara Milovy, and finds out that she's Georgi's girlfriend. He's sponsoring her music career. James convinces her that he's Koskov's friend and that he would be helping her to eventually meet up with him. After a little investigation, he finds out that the gun she intended to shoot Georgi with had blanks. As they leave Bratislava, the police tail Bond and Kara because they are on the lookout for a woman who was a hit woman with a cello. Bond is now driving an Aston Martin for the first time since On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Yes! It is equiped with a laser, missiles, turbo boost, and skis. We find this all out during an exciting chase scene where unfortunately Bond has to vacate the vehicle and press the self destruct button. :( Oh no, it looks like Bond and Kara are about to be captured... Wait! They decide to slide down the mountain they are on in the cello case and go over the border to Austria.
Soon we find out that Koskov hasn't defected at all. He is hanging out in Tangiers at arms dealers Brad Whitaker's place with Necros. The defection was a ruse and he used Kara as a pawn to make his defection look real. Soon we see head Russian General Pushkin meeting with Whitaker and telling him that he is cancelling a $50 million dollar order since the money remained in a Swiis bank account for eight weeks and had not moved. At about the same time, Bond finds out that Whitaker and Koskov are connected because Kara's cello, The Lady Rose, was bought by Whitaker and not Koskov. This leads to Bond going to Tangiers to investigate. Also, he find out that Puskin is there. Could Smersh really be back in action? After meeting up with Pushkin that explains that Smersh was deactivated twenty years ago and that Georgi and Whitaker are in league, Bond pretends to assainate Pushkin just as Necros is about to. This leads the bad guys to believe that Bond has fallen for their deception. 007 is eventually drugged by Kara who was told by Georgi that he was a KGB agent. She figures out that she was being used all along about five seconds later. The are held captive and taken to a Russian base in Afghanistan. They escape with a little help of James' key finder. This leads to them being helped out by an Afghan that escapes with them that happens to be the leader of the Afghan resistance.
The plot for the final stretch of the movie is a little too complicated for my liking. It turns out that the Georgi and Necros are smuggling diamonds which are being used as a down payment to opium dealers. They plan on selling the half a million dollars worth of drugs to turn a profit and buy more weapons from Whitaker to use against the Afghan resistance and at the same time be able to pay back the KGB. This leads to Bond joining up with the resistance, getting in an awesome fight on the back of a plane with Necros which was blatantly ripped off in Uncharted 3, and a bomb blowing up. Then Bond goes back to Tangiers to deal with Whitaker whose place has a massive armory waiting to deal with 007. Is this it for our favorite secret agent?
In the end I have to say that certain things about this movie are great, but others are not. While there are some excellent action sequences, at other times the pacing is rather poor. Also Whitaker, Koskov, and Necros are very generic and not good Bond villains. The only thing that was interesting about them was that Whitaker had a bunch of mannequins of himself dressed up like famous generals (Napolean, Caesar, Khan, and others). The plot was more down to earth than many of the other Bond movies, but it also was more boring than some because of it it. Also, Kara Milovy isn't exactly the mose interesting Bond girl ever, but compared to Tanya Roberts... Olivia d'Abo is Meryl Streep as an actress. In the end I'll give it...
3 out of 5 - Average for a Bond movie for the reasons above. Also, Timothy Dalton's portrayal of Bond is interesting. He plays the part much more serious and he actually reminds me more of the Bond from the novels than any of the other actors to portray Bond. This is a positive and a negative in my opinion. As much as Bond seems like a "real person", the Bond of the movies had become a much different type of character with Connery and Moore's tongue in cheek approach. While I do think that Dalton acheived exactly what he intended to do, I don't know if this is what many Bond fans wanted. As much as I understand the backlash against him, I think that many don't give him credit for the extremely solid performance he gave. I just wish that would stop taking his job so serious once in a while and took a little time to have some fun. It's clear that this script was written with Brosnan in mind with some of the one liners that Dalton looks so uncomfortable giving. The scriptwriters take care of this in the next film by writing the next film to his strengths.
Cool thing to know - This review was written as humorless as possible in honor of Timothy Dalton.
James Bond will return next Monday in Licence To Kill.
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