This has surprised me because the film has long been a favourite of mine. Although I had seen both Never Say Never Again and AVTAK at the cinema, going to see TLD was the first time I felt and understood the electric tingle of anticipation as the gun barrel rolled across the screen in front of me. I've had the same feeling with every subsequent Bond film, despite the disparagement I have had for many elements of the franchise in these posts, I know that makes me a incurable fan. Every time, sat there in the dark of the movie theatre, I am on the edge of something new - unlike the other Bond films, endlessly repeated on television, and then bought and re-bought on VHS, DVD and BluRay, what's about to happen is utterly unknown.
When we're faced with the prospect of a new 007, these feelings are exacerbated and, perhaps, also tinged with apprehension. This seems to have been on the minds of the makers of TLD, who not only keep us waiting for Dalton as the PCS unfolds, but give us three faceless Double-O agents who might be him, as if they are auditioning for the part before us. Cleverly, they are revealed in ascending order of Bondness. Number One is floppy-haired and rubbish, and gets caught in his own parachute before being paint-balled by a squaddie as part of the war games. Number Two looks more like Bond, a bit more rugged, darker, and at least has the dignity to be properly killed by a real baddy, but it's still a fail. Which leaves us with Number Three, who promptly dives onto a speeding Land Rover, kills the assassin, escapes stylishly and does sex with a lady on a boat. Yeah, we'll have him then, okay Cubby?
This is our first (and impressive) impression of the new 007, but as soon as we've logged it we're being offered a different - and more interesting - version. Once the film has properly begun we are back in the Cold War world of defections, checkpoints and proper old school secret agents. In short, we are back to something that rather resembles FRWL, but in the middle of all this is none other than the literary James Bond himself, extracted, by some odd Q-Branch alchemy, from the very ribbons of Ian Fleming's gold typewriter. For twenty minutes or so, the film is happy and able to run with Dalton's desire to get Bond back in character and it is absolutely the strongest section of the film. In fact we get the original short story, The Living Daylights, rendered with only the most careful and judicious updating.
The Daniel Craig movies have, so far at least, made much hay out of the dramatic opportunities offered by a version of Bond that more closely matches Fleming's creation, but here, momentarily, we get a delicious glimpse of what is yet to come. We see Bond as the 'blunt instrument', the killer sent to do a job, as he stands in the seedy apartment holding an enormous sniper rifle. But even has he stares coldly down the sights, 007 experiences an instinctive revulsion at his profession - partly because his hackles have been raised by his officious fellow agent, Saunders, and partly because his head has been turned by a pretty blonde - that causes him to spare his target. This is where Bond starts to become interesting. Arrogantly, he backs his instincts against his orders. Forgoing the easy kill, he employs his astonishing skill to shoot the gun from his target's hands instead. And then, accused of insubordination, he snarls his retort, unrepentant.
This is James Bond: a man of improbable abilities; a loner, distrustful of ideologies and communities, repeatedly forced to rely upon his own instincts; a man consumed with self-disgust at what he does; who is nonetheless addicted to the dangers of his profession; and who dulls the awareness of his own fragile mortality with voracious and unhealthy appetites.
This is the man that is sketched over the course of Fleming's stories and it is recognisably the same character that only Craig and Dalton have brought to the screen to any degree. But perhaps the reason why TLD feels a little insubstantial these days is because of Daniel Craig. He sells the powerful masculinity of Bond with his incredible physical performance: huffing, sweating, snorting, crashing - or even just rising out of the sea. Dalton nails the accidie in the opening section of TLD but, as the film leaves its source material behind, his Bond begins to look a little delicate in comparison.
More shockingly, Dalton's Bond is also undermined by his predecessor. Yes, good old Sir Roger. Love him or hate him, it cannot be denied that Moore has a wonderful way of gently selling a joke. Dalton is taking the character in a different direction here, but that doesn't mean he isn't required to try and emulate Moore's lightness of touch. He categorically fails. Specifically there are three egregious attempts at a 'comedy' double-take (for the record the lines are: 'We have a pipeline to the West', 'I've had a few optional extras installed' and 'We have a saying too, and you're full of it!') and they are painful to watch. If I remember correctly there's at least one more coming up in LTK (swordfish through the chair during the bar-brawl?) so that's something to look forward to, isn't it? Or if you'd rather reflect on past glories, two great Moore double-takes: TSWLM, Bond, driving the Lotus, notices the glamorous helicopter pilot who is trying to kill him; FYEO, running for his life, Bond realises that Melina's car is battered yellow 2CV. That, Timothy, is how you do it.
It doesn't help that the whole film begins to lose its bearings once Fleming's source material is out of the way. There are some impressive set pieces (Necros's attack on the MI6 safe house; the escape down a mountain in a cello case) but the story trying to thread these all together isn't good enough, being simultaneously too weak and too complicated. In the past we've been used to films where the plot centred on one thing: gold, diamonds, drugs or weapons for example. TLD throws all these in on top of each other like a game of 'one potato, two potato' and then compounds things by having a multitude of different factions fight over it all as well.
It is laudable that a Bond film would want to reference a real situation like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, although it's fair to say, I think, that recent events have rendered TLD more than a little quaint: the good old days, as it were, when the Russians were the baddies and James Bond could join forces with a radicalised Muslim Oxford graduate. But this film, following on from Octopussy, feels the need to try and reflect the deeper complexity of its times. So, we have bad Russians and good Russians once more. Very interestingly, the good Russians are loyal servants of the state - Pushkin - and the bad Russians are crypto-capitalists, in it for personal wealth. What the hell? We also have good and bad Americans - arguably for the first time: Whitaker, weapons-monger, is bad, and he too is a capitalist. In fact he's a rampant egoist, a brazenly conceited and self-serving individual, almost capitalism personified. The good Americans opposing him are the blank and featureless operatives of the Federal Government - almost literally actually, seeing as John Terry (no really) is a sure-fire winner of the 'Blandest Felix Leiter' competition. Admit it, you'd forgotten Felix was in TLD, hadn't you? He needn't have been. Leiter here is so flavourless, he makes Dalton zing. (There are, of course, no bad Brits. Even Saunders, our sniffy MI6 man in Bratislava, is shown to be a good egg in the end.) Add in the Mujahideen and Kara (an independent faction in her own right) and, well, things become really quite unnecessarily complicated.
Ah yes, Kara Milovy, the one with the cello. She's a bit of a step backwards really. The premise, that 007 is stringing her along to get to her boyfriend, is a strong one and has real opportunities for drama. The downside is that, as a result, Kara becomes a naive and, let's face it, wet character with rather too much in common with the likes of Domino from Thunderball. Worse though are the bumbling, 'hanging-on-the-gun-arm' tendencies she has (mucking about with the plane controls for example) which put her firmly in the vicinity of the hapless Mary Goodnight (TMWTGG).
Still, despite all my carping there's much to like about TLD. M, Q and new Moneypenny, Caroline Bliss, all get nice character moments and Dalton, even if he can't manage the brutal hunger of say Connery or Craig, works hard to rediscover Bond as a paid assassin with distasteful duties. John Rhys-Davies is winningly likeable as Pushkin and there's some proper cinematography going on too (specifically the shots of sunrise over a camel train in the Afghan desert). John Barry turns in his last soundtrack. It's tidy, with the elements of a strong theme worked throughout, but the most notable thing about it is the synth drums that are laid over the action scenes. I wonder if that was him?
* * *
Pre-Credits Sequence: I've discussed this higher up, but this is obviously a carefully constructed PCS designed to introduce the new Bond. It's a good one too: a nice little mini adventure that still manages to set up the plot for the rest of the film.
Theme: Norwegian pop-rockers a-ha (I believe that's how you type it?) turn in a good effort, full of '80s synths, drums and no small amount of dark and rainy atmospherics. Binder's even able to manage a few images that reinforce this ambience, but mainly it is the usual girl-based nonsense and finishes, for no good reason whatsoever, with a woman killing time stood inside a giant champagne flute. But of course.
Deaths: Ooh, controversy. I made it 28 but I'm am forced to revise this down to 26. I counted four deaths during the attack on the safe house but in the next scene M gruffs "Two dead, two injured," so that's me told. Perhaps I should halve all my tallies on this basis?
Memorable Deaths: Saunders gets mashed up by a door. A Double-O falls off the Rock of Gibraltar. Necros falls off a Hercules clutching Bond's boot. Whitaker gets head-butted by the Duke of Wellington. Most memorable perhaps is Pushkin's faked assasination, which does involve a lot of blood and one comedy eye bulge.
Licence to Kill: 6. Not very high but then Bond does sit out the main Afghan/Russian battle behind the wheel of a taxiing plane.
Exploding Helicopters: 0. Another dry spell.
Shags: Technically, 2 (there's the odd-looking woman on the yacht in the PCS), but really only one and this feels like a deliberate de-tox for 007. Co-incidentally, TLD was the first Bond film to be made after the HIV/AIDS public information campaigns began. Go figure.
Crimes Against Women: As discussed, Kara is not the most empowered of Eighties women. She does get to call Bond the back end of a horse, but this is, perhaps, scant consolation. When she does assert herself, Kamran Shan hisses "Women!" and rolls his eyes in a manner we are presumably intended to find humorous. Bond cynically uses Pushkin's half-naked girlfriend to distract a KGB bodyguard and pats Moneypenny on the backside. Really! 007's eventual sexual harassment tribunal is going to make the Leveson inquiry look like peanuts.
Casual Racism: No particularly terrible examples but Bond does suggest to Kara that the Mujahideen will "save you for the harem". And there is, of course, the usual undeniable background racism of the series which boils down to this: foreigners are a rum lot.
Out of Time: James Bond smokes and that was controversial even in 1987. Q has produced something called a 'ghetto-blaster'. The Soviets are in Afghanistan, but we're exhorted to trust Gorbachev's reforming government: Puskin is absolutely a goody; Gogol, over drinks with M again, coughs up a visa for Kara.
Fashion Disasters: Dalton is the first Bond to make the smart-casual look work at all. Even so, he has an ugly plaid jacket during the safe house briefing. And Q gives him a pair of gizmo sunglasses that are even more shockingly obvious and ridiculous than the ones Roger Moore had.
Eh?: Maybe I stopped caring but I didn't spot very many odd things during this. It's possible that the convoluted double-crossing trade-up swap-shop of a plot does make sense, but I felt very little motivation to sit there and pay attention to it. Likewise the over-complicated instructions to Bond's key-fob/stun-gas/grenade: I'm sure it doesn't quite add up (which whistle does what when again?) but I can't care enough about it to meticulously check (remind of this when we get to the ballpoint pen clicking in GoldenEye). >> All right, there is this: if the Army in Gibraltar are alert enough to pick off a Double-O agent, why don't they spot the 'KGB' assassin, eh? >> Clearly still with money to burn, MI6 recreate M's office, complete with desk and phone, in the back of an RAF Hercules for one flight. >> Is a cello still concert-worthy if it has a bullet hole in it? Presumably it is actually two holes too, unless the bullet is still rattling around inside? Either way, surely this would affect the resonance? >> According to Wikipedia there's some controversy about whether Bond's car is an Aston Martin Volante V8 or a non-Volante V8 saloon with Volante badges (it appears to flit between the two states, depending on whether it is is in the studio or on location) but really, Jesus, life's too short to care, surely?
Worst Line: See all the double-takes, above. Bond finishes off by surprising Kara in her dressing room after her concert. "You didn't think I'd miss this performance, did you?" It's funny/clever because he means a SEX performance. Ugh.
Best Line: There's a lovely moment when M blithely introduces General Gogol to Kamran Shah of the Mujahideen. I look forward to Judi Dench having drinks with Donald Rumsfeld and Ayman al-Zawahiri in Skyfall.
Worst Bond Moment: Those double-takes, sorry. And pulling a gun on a little kid and his mother. Awkward!
Best Bond Moment: Bond effortlessly hitting bulls-eyes at the fairground is a nice touch. The PCS is great and all the Eastern European bits are good for Bond. But really, TLD lacks any cast-iron brilliant bit of 007 magic.
Overall: Bond goes back to basics. It's a good, solid Bond film with some proper espionage, a Flemingy 007 and comparatively little sex or violence - in short it would be a good one to show to the kids if it wasn't for the stupidly over-complicated story. Excitingly, Dalton shows that he understands the character of Bond, even if he hasn't got the physical presence of other 007s. Never mind, Moore didn't have it either and he made seven films so, on the basis of TLD, the franchise will be in safe hands for many years to come! Um...
James Bond Will Return: ... I expect! It doesn't say any more than that. Maybe they've not thought of a title for the next one, seeing as they've all but exhausted the Fleming ones? How about Licence Revoked! What? What do you mean nobody will know what 'revoked' means? Oh well. What? Licence to Kill? Are you kidding me? Why not just call it James Bond is A Spy? Or Martinis, Guns and Girls? Yes, I am done now, sorry.
Actually, I'm not because I have...
TWO BONUS FACTS:
1) TLD is the first Bond film to feature opera. Whilst they're in Vienna, James takes Kara to see The Marriage of Figaro and we get a sneak peek of the end of Act II. It's not the Staatsoper though - according to my sources they're at the "Schönbrunn Palace Theatre, occasional home of Vienna's third opera company, the Kammeroper", so now you know.
2) Yes, well spotted. That parrot taking up space in the MI6 safe house really is Max from FYEO. Presumably Bond brought it back lest it blab 'ATAC to Saint Cyrils!' to any passers by.
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