The Living Daylights (1987)

Genre

Action | Thriller

Director

John Glen

Country

UK

Cast

Timothy Dalton, Maryam d'Abo, Joe Don Baker, John Rhys-Davies, Art Malik, Jeroen Krabbé, Andreas Wisniewski, Thomas Wheatley, Robert Brown, Desmond Llewelyn, Geoffrey Keen, Caroline Bliss, John Terry, Walter Gotell, Virginia Hey, Julie T. Wallace, Nadim Sawalha

Storyline

James Bond (Timothy Dalton) is living on the edge to stop an evil arms dealer (Jeroen Krabbé) from starting another world war.

Opinion

For some mysterious reason I was looking forward to see Timothy Dalton's James Bond. I don't know why, I'm not even a fan of his, or anything. That day finally arrived, and it brought something new to the table. Besides Dalton.

I could say "The Living Daylights" is the rebirth of the franchise, and it's not an exaggeration to say that because this film is miles away from most of his predecessors starring Roger Moore. 

Like I mentioned before, there's finally something new, fresh in this film: the story. Finally, I don't know how long I've waited to say this, the film does not follow, step by step, the plot structure of previous movies. Actually it turns away from it, becoming less predictable, and therefore gives more power to the twist that in the past often didn't have any impact because of the predictability of the story.

Maybe this new James Bond falls in love too easily, he also shows a little too much sensitivity for the sweet Bond girl, and his obedience to his superiors begins to wobble a little, but overall the story is good. However, the villains are not that good, maybe because they are not given enough screen time.

Anyway, there is more action - this time it does not include the same sequences seen over and over again - but the plot isn't suffocated by it. Q's gadgets are back as well, from the spectacular Aston Martin everyone would like to have, to a special keychain.

Timothy Dalton does a very good job considering it's his first time as James Bond, and played the character wonderfully. He lacks that something that both Connery and Moore had but he makes up for that with a lot of sympathy.