Amph 60+ Years of James Bond 007

This is a very strange movie because it's very much a product of its time while it has also aged gracefully. It's probably the best Bond film until Casino Royale comes along. Again, it's really too bad Dalton only did 2 films.

 

I really like LTK. I think Dalton's Bond works so much better here than he did in TLD, helped by the fact that they didn't add in Moore-era goofiness. I rank Cary Lowel as one of the prettiest Bond girls, and I had a huge crush on her when the movie first came out. Davi's a good villain - yeah, he's a little Miami Vice influenced, but he works well with Dalton's 007. The plot is actually interesting , nice and different from what we often get from a Bond film (though not totally original, being a Red Harvest/ Yojimbo derivative, but hey, I like that kind of plot - Miller's Crossing is one of my favourite movies, after all).

There are a few bits I could have done without - like Havac said, there are some gimmicky bits where they should have stuck to gritty realism, such as the tanker chase, but all in all I think it's a good Bond film. It doesn't have the style (or nostalgia) of the early Connery films, or the pared-down grittiness of Craig's recent outings, but it deserved better than to be the film that sunk the franchise for a time.

 

Might I add that the script is so good that the whole "Why doesn't the villain just kill Bond when he has the chance?" query is largely moot. Until the finale, Sanchez understandably assumes 007 is corrupt, and when the ruse is revealed, it's his psychotic fury, not some tired, detached, aristocratic ego, that sends Bond into the coke-grinding death trap. (And even then, Sanchez only misses the planned execution because his fortress is erupting in flames.)

God I love this movie.

My rankings:

1. From Russia With Love/OHMSS (tie)
2. Dr. No
3. Licence to Kill
4. Goldfinger

Everything else thus far is either a guilty pleasure or a mediocrity.

 

Predictably, I love this movie, others have already summed up why I do (and also hit most of my quibbles with the film) as well as I ever could.

Bring on Brosnan! (ugh)

 

The truck chase isn't that great, but I love that by the end Bond looks utterly beat to ****. I don't remember any of the previous entries pulling that off.

1. On Her Majesty's Secret Service
2. From Russia with Love
3. Goldfinger
4. Dr. No
5. The Spy Who Loved Me
6. Licence to Kill
7. The Living Daylights
8. For Your Eye Only
9. Thunderball
10. Live and Let Die
11. You Only Live Twice
12. The Man With the Golden Gun
13. Moonraker
14. Octopussy
15. Diamonds are Forever
16. A View to a Kill

 

^"Bond bleeds!" as one reviewer put it, iirc.

 

Someone mentioned that this film "sunk the franchise for a time". What breathtaking ignorance, especially in this day of access to information. The delays between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye were due to legal issues with the parent studios, not with LTK's gross.

This film is in my top 3, following OHMSS and Casino Royale. It's the Bond that Fleming wrote, updated to fit the contemporary setting and given a taut and personal plot for Bond, who had previously had to avoid any normal emotions as he was played by an 87 year old comedian.

This is easily Dalton's finest film; he's completely in character. I like the subtle elements such as Bond being energised in the hunt for Leiter's attackers in Miami - given Fleming wrote of Bond's boredom with his job, you could see him back at his CR peak when he was a younger, hungrier agent.

Plus this film has my favourite exchange between Bond and anyone, ever;

"I help people with problems."
"Ah, problem solver"
"More of a problem eliminator".

The lines require some menace to pull them off convincingly; Moore would have made it sound slightly creepy but Dalton makes you believe he's an assassin and killing bothers him not one bit.

I'm not sorry to say this; if you don't like this film, you don't actually understand James Bond.

 

I don't like this film that much, I like the Craig films a lot (except QoS which is garbage). I think I understand James Bond more than you think those people you think don't understand James Bond do.

Also, Carey Lowell sucks except for like two scenes.

 

This was the perception at the time. I'm old enough to have read the reviews and the comments made when the film came out, and while press in the UK was very positive, the general noise from the US was that LTK had underperformed at the box-office and that the franchise was struggling.

 

The problem is that Dalton was stuck with extremely uneven production for his 2 films and this one is no exception. Again, I think the problem is that the production team wanted to move away from the silliness of Moore, but didn't quite know how to do it. As a result, Dalton was left with movies which were disjointed. Dalton's stripped down, more personal Bond is left to sink or swim within movie scripts for his 2 movies that seem to be written when Moore was still Bond.

Casting Wayne Newton simply because he was a fan represents one of the greatest blunders in movie making since movies have been made. Yeah, I get the plot point, but there are 100 ways which would be more practical and make more sense in-world, and the scenes with Newton are so hammy, they take the audience out of the movie. Carey Lowell is the same way. I'd say with 100% conviction that when she was introduced, her character had one of the greatest potential of any of the Bond girls, but she ended up being under-used and outright goofy. I agree with d who said she had 2 great scenes.

Other little things contribute to the uneven tone- The "signature gun," despite the fact that it is supposed to be disguised as a camera, looks like something so anachronistic that even Buster Crabbe, star of the 40's Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon serials would think it looks silly:

Q- "Here's your signature gun, it's disguised as a video camera."
Bond- "Geez, Q...It's almost 1990, why does it look like a 1960's JVC Betamax?" "And it's so bulky, I'm supposed to be accurate with it over distance?"

And ironically, at no time in the movie does the stealth aspect ever come into play. Bond would have been better served with a a traditional, non-unique sniper rifle. Because it's the opposite, where everyone and their brother recognizes it as a super-secret spy signature gun, which kind of defeats the purpose. Other things like Bond "2 wheeling'" the fuel tanker to avoid a heat seeking missile... For example, compare Dalton's tanker chase scene with Craig's tanker chase scene. Craig's was by far realistic, but still exciting. I suppose the argument could be made that without Dalton's transition, Craig's stylized reboot wouldn't be possible, but the fact is that Dalton, despite the fact giving a top notch personal depiction of Bond, still got screwed out of not having a movie which could be his signature. LTK came close, but he still needed a 3rd movie. It would have been a bonus had it been Goldeneye-but it wasn't meant to be.

 

Where exactly was Lowell goofy?

 

I liked Benico in this. Pure craziness. His death scene was horrifically spectacular.

 

One scene comes to mind:

::Bond is dangling above the shredder::
Pam: Are you alright?
Bond: SWITCH THE BLOODY MACHINE OFF!

(I love the scene personally though )

 

I don't see that as goofy.

 

The entirety of her scene with Wayne Newton is out of the "Dale Arden school of Ming escaping..."

But, really, to me -- it just seems forced. I understand the goal of having her be really and truly the first Bond girl to be not-extraneous. And, as a concept, she's a relatively good one -- except, she grates. Badly. Mostly because, to me, it feels forced. She was, at best, a highly-trained flight courier. She had some training as an Army pilot (right?) and could hold her own in a fight (as I said: I love the initial bar sequence). She understood how drug trafficking worked, especially down there, but she was hopelessly outmatched compared to where she thought she was.

But you have the same issues with jealousy threatening to get everyone killed (with Bond/Lupe) that people hated with Goodnight in TMWTGG and once it's clear to her (especially once Q appears) that Bond is, y'know, a highly-trained operative... maybe she could get onboard with not trying to get them all killed with an "undercover mission."

I actually thought both female characters in Die Another Day worked better than Bouvier did -- even though both characters were ludicrous!

I actually loved Dalton (even if I disliked the story/script) and Davi and Del Toro were outstanding, but I really dislike the film overall.

 

We are no longer friends.

 

Does anyone else love the moment in the underwater chase when Bond, clearly outnumbered, shoots a harpoon into the escaping plane, propels to the surface, and waterskis his way to the vehicle...to the accompaniment of the 007 Theme?

Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da, DA DA DA DA!!!!

That one passage manages to erase the pain of the Moore era.

 

Yeah, d just captured what I was thinking as well. When I originally used the term "goofy," I didn't mean slapstick style comedy, but "goofy" in relation to acting against how they set her character up. Any scene of her running around in robes at the retreat. The private room escape. Her entire "jealously above all else" aspect, despite the fact that she was supposed to be a trained CIA agent herself. Maybe if the movie had set up some sort of transition scene-any scene-it would have made sense. But we have her introduction as a former CIA agent and current streetsmart freelance pilot.....Bond basically treats her like crap (or at least no different than he treats anyone who is part of the mission) and then we have her acting like a 16 year old schoolgirl for no conceivable reason, especially since she came from a spy background herself.

What's most frustrating is that the movie itself could have made this really cool. When they meet at the dive-bar, Bouvier could have been given a connection to Leiter as well since they both share the CIA connection....ie it's personal for Bond, and Leiter could have been Bouvier's training officer or something, back when she wasn't so cynical, so both she and Bond share the personal feelings of revenge which then transform into their relationship that ended up being shown on screen. But nothing was developed at all, and the final "jealously aspect" seems to come out of left field. Which is how Lowell was under-developed in the entire movie.

 

I just don't see it. She wore basic robes to infiltrate a compound, so it's goofy and against her character concept? And this "jealousy above all else" thing, that I really don't get. I guess you'll have to explain. She starts to fall for Bond, he has sex with her, then he goes off and seduces another woman and she feels hurt by it because the movie is taking her seriously as a human being who has actual feelings (as opposed to Goodnight, who got locked in a closet overnight so Bond could have sex, in the same room, with a different woman instead, and then goes ahead and shags him a few days later, no hard feelings). You feel this is an immature take on the character? It's not like she locks herself up in her room all night listening to Fall Out Boy and screaming "I hate you!" She basically just goes, "That *******!" and then goes on with things. Surprise surprise, a woman gets upset when she perceives that she's been used and then discarded in favor of the new model when she thought or hoped that she had something serious developing! How unrealistic, must be bad characterization! I don't see where you're going here.

 

Well, honestly, I haven't thought that much about it. I guess I just share d's assessment above as well- to say that it feels forced? As he said, I just think she was probably better as a concept. For example, they shouldn't have played up the highly trained pilot/CIA connection just to have her act like school girl with a first crush. I see where you're going with the above about the feelings, but as a former spy herself, she would have known what is required for the mission. If they wanted to play up the jealously/feelings aspect, the movie should have portrayed some sort of deeper connection between them that would have muddled the waters and made her act more human than her prior training would normally allow. I mean, besides "Bond has sex with her, but then goes off and seduces another woman to get close to the bad guy, so she gets huffy." It just seems forced.

 

She was never a spy, I thought -- only a former army pilot and CIA informant (not operative).

 

I don't specifically remember. Even if she wasn't an actual CIA operative, being an army pilot working with the CIA should have given her a thicker skin, which I don't think translated into the final version. In fact, being an actual former uniformed military pilot, she most certainly would have understood putting one's feelings aside for the mission, maybe moreso than a civilian CIA member would. (Most likely she would have been flying helicopters and then demonstrated some sort of special aptitude to be detailed out to the CIA. Back when the movie was made, female pilots were probably still prohibited from combat duties, but that's getting really detailed)

There was some sort of disconnect between her introduction and how her character progressed (or didn't, as the case may have been)

 

Was the "seduction" really necessary to the plot, though? Wasn't she already motivated to help him because she wanted a way out from Sanchez? And isn't sort of absurd to assume that someone will reveal everything because of a single sexual encounter? These justifications are paper-thin, and rest much more heavily on the understanding that having sex with women is cool, and therefore James Bond has to do it with absurd frequency because he's such an awesome character. I think Lowell could pretty safely get upset that there is no actual rationale behind what happens, but that's probably hitting closer to home than these movies tend to.