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24 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Licence Revoked, 12 Dec 2007
Although Moonraker is the popular fan favorite for worst Bond movie, Licence To Kill runs it a close second. Whereas the Moore films had a fairly gradual lowering of standards, the superiority of The Living Daylights made the drop in quality of LTK seem that much more dramatic. The lowest-grossing movie in the series' history, it's a classic case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. "This time Bond bleeds," claimed the producers, promising a tougher, more credible Bond film only to lack the nerve to deliver on their promise. Instead they wimped out and delivered something distinctly half-hearted that adheres to many of the weakest elements of the Bond formula but which throws out much of what makes Bond himself Bond in a disastrously counterproductive attempt to widen the series' appeal in the US market. Change the main character's name and you'd never know it was a Bond film - the character has been pared down and simplified to such an extent that there's little relation either to the previous films or even Fleming's novels (despite using aspects of Fleming's Live and Let Die). Casino Royale got around having Bond as a blunt instrument by showing the character develop, but in LTK he's just a standard issue guy they pushed too far. The result is a standard issue OTT 80s action movie that owes more to Commando and Elmore Leonard's 52 Pickup and The Tall T and which feels like Lethal Weapon 2 had it been remade with Roger Moore.
It has some novelty value as the only film where Bond isn't a secret agent, though turning him into just another vigilante is a big part of the problem. This time Bond goes against his superiors, his licence to kill revoked, to extract bloody revenge on the drug lord who fed Felix Leiter's legs to a shark and killed the CIA man's wife. But where The Living Daylights made the most of its narrative economy, here script, editing, scoring and direction all combine to provide a lack of momentum - poorly paced, this feels a good half hour too long. Frustratingly there is the occasional germ of a good idea, such as Bond blundering into and compromising wider issues with his vendetta, but they are never pursued. Rather than explore the increasingly fine line between good or evil or the psychosis that Bond's quest should hint at, it simply spends most of its running time coming up with unimaginative ways to kill the bad guys. This Bond makes no demands on his audience.
Almost nothing in the picture works on any terms. It's certainly in no way the gritty, realistic or down to Earth movie its supporters frequently claim. Wayne Newton playing a comic religious cult leader, Bond and Felix Leiter parachuting into a wedding in full morning suit attire (in a remarkably clumsily sped-up shot) after a midair hijack of a plane, Uncle Q coming along for comic relief on what's supposed to be a grim revenge mission, inept comedy ninjas, the obligatory villain's giant lair being blown up and an exploding head almost as ridiculous as the inflatable Yaphet Kotto in Live and Let Die are hardly the stuff of The French Connection, and nor is the surprisingly weak villain (the curse of the Dalton films). Sanchez may work on paper, but onscreen he's a damp squib, which is surprising as Robert Davi has repeatedly shown - as had Jeroen Krabbe before him - that outside Bond he could deliver real menace. There's certainly a potentially more interesting character there than the script allows Davi to show. The Bond girls are pretty atrociously written too: to see Talisa Soto's "I love him so much" moment is to know pain. Even Dalton, so impressive in The Living Daylights, is a lot less impressive second time round despite his best efforts.
Worse, it doesn't work as either a Bond film or as a standalone action movie: like too many of the weaker Bond films, if it weren't for the Bond brand and the loyalty the series has it probably would have sunk into obscurity long ago taken purely on its own merits as a film. In some ways it's a bold attempt to shake up the franchise, but that's the saddest thing about it. About the only two scenes that do work are when Bond throws a suitcase filled with a blood money at a heavy balanced on the edge of a shark tank (hardly a giant leap from [I] "Where's Fekkish?", "You've had your six" or Moore kicking a car containing a killer off a cliff in previous entries) or the factory scene where he's trying to disguise himself from Benicio Del Toro. Elsewhere it's certainly no harsher nor more serious than previous efforts: even Felix doesn't seem that bothered over his wife's rape and murder and is able to laugh it off by the end of the film.
There are also a lot of plot holes and absurdities: just why does Bond attack the MI5 agents after his licence to kill is revoked and why does M suddenly have his minions shooting at his most valuable agent? Why exactly are inept suicidal Japanese ninjas working for the HONG KONG Narcotics Agency? Why, in a moment that could have come out of a Leslie Nielson film, does one tiny fire in an enclosed laboratory within seconds become an impossible-to-extinguish raging inferno that causes a massive complex to blow up? Well, because someone thought they'd make for cool scenes is about the only explanation.
It's possible this could have been made to work with a more assured sense of tone, but the larky mood, cheap gags and poor execution do it no favors. Maybe a John McTiernan could have done something with the material even with such a weak script and no chance of proper rewrites due to the writers' strike, but John Glen just flattens it all with his lazy direction. It's professionally made but it fatally lacks the courage to go all the way in the way that Casino Royale did. LTK is like a nervous bather, constantly dipping one toe in the water only to almost immediately draw back to its imagined comfort zone. Even Moonraker, bad as it was, knew exactly what kind of film it was and stayed true to itself. Alone among the Bond films, LTK is the one people constantly have to make excuses for.
New extras for the two-disc Ultimate Edition are fairly thin - 9 deleted scenes, one of Bond unpacking in a hotel room while watching TV coverage of Sanchez arriving at a charity gala good enough to have stayed in the film - location scouting footage, archive interviews with John Glen and interview footage from 1989, with the extras from the original release carried over. The UK version finally has a few seconds of very unconvincing violence restored for this release, making it the first time it's been available uncut over here.
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13 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
finally a decent release for dalton's bond!, 6 Jun 2006
as a fan of the bond series i have always thought that Timothy Dalton was the most realistic bond. he had the experience and background in dramatic art to give a convincing depiction. although Brosnan was very good in goldeneye i really wished that Dalton had not left to pursue other projects as Goldeneye was written for him and was gritty and interesting in the time it was set. if you remember alec dies then movie starts 9 years later meaning it was set in 2004! i do hope this sells and makes people see how great Dalton's 007 really was.
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14 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"He Disagreed With Something That Ate Him!", 4 Aug 2006
A truly rousing piece of cinema and a milestone in the James Bond saga to which the fantastic Timothy Dalton bows out in explosive fashion as 007 in this gritty story about revenge away from HMSS.
Robert Davi and Benicio Del Toro star as the main villains of the film, drug baron Franz Sanchez and his thug bodyguard Dario who are ready to flood the streets with Class-A drugs and take down anyone who stands in there way, including CIA Agent Felix Leighter.
It's this grizzly event that takes James Bond from new highs to dangerous lows as he turns renegade to track down the ones responsible with the help of spunky Bond girl Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell).
The best of the two Dalton pictures, and a real dose of grown up action for the Bond series which never lets down and boats some of the most exciting and jaw dropping stuntwork and action sequences in a 007 film. Miss at your peril.
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