Customer Reviews

Duty has no sweethearts - By: Matthew Mercy, 30 Aug 2008
My personal favourite of all the Bond movies, Timothy Dalton's debutin the role is an original, hard-edged cold war adventure film with interesting characters, a believable plot, some strong acting (Joe Don Baker takes the honours), & a truly awesome final stunt sequence. And Dalton, though he has his detractors, is easily the closest to Fleming's original literary Bond; he plays the part as a professional spy, & not a playboy. One of the most underrated thrillers of the 1980s. Top marks.

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A worthwhile addition to the pantheon of Bond movies - By: , 27 Jul 2008
This is a good old fashioned mid-80's spy thriller based around the theme of Soviet defections & dodgy arms deals. The Living Daylights stars my favourite Bond girl - Maryam D'Abo as cellist Kara Milovy, so I'm biased towards this film from the outset.

Timothy Dalton is fine as the new Bond here & brings his own personality to the role. Highlights include the Gibraltar pre-credit sequence, the one man raid on British Intelligencein the depths of the English countryside, the car chase through the snows of the former Czechoslovakia & the cargo plane sequence at the end. Some bits do perhaps go on a bit though e.g. the Afghan uprising.

It's worth pointing out that this Bond outing has great music throughout. The DVD also contains a package of useful extras.

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A new Bond - better than I thought it would be - By: Nicholas Casley, 15 Mar 2008
Timothy Dalton's first outing as Bond is better than I thought it would be. Dalton provides a certain gravitas to the role. It was a pleasure to watch someone who played Bond straight; for too long Roger Moore parodied the role & had too great a twinklein his eye.

The notable changein style is exemplified by the thankfully greatly reduced gags & one-liners, & it was a refreshing change to watch a Bond movie where it took 61 minutes before he kissed a woman, & even then he this was only after a long courting. John Glen, the director, mentionsin the commentary that the advent of AIDS definitely influenced the script.

The usual fancy set of locations is visited - Gibraltar, Vienna, Tangier - although it was amusing to see Bond helping the Afghan fighters attack the Russiansin Afghanistan. How times have changed!

The accompanying commentary mentions how Bond may be different, but the production crew remain largely the same - & this is part of the problem. Perhaps they took their jobs for granted, since the same usual errorsin continuity, editing, & shameless undercranking frequently dog the movie. And all those shots aimed at Bond & not one of them hits home!

The commentary, by the way, is mainly given by John Glen; there is no sign of any words from Timothy Dalton. The other extras include deleted scenes; different angles of the ice-chase sequence; a 45-minute documentary on bond's 25th anniversary, hosted by Roger Moore (this is just a rehash of former film-scenes); minor featurettes on the car etc; & interviews with the leading stars at the time of the film's release.

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Bad start for Dalton - By: NoWireHangers, 24 Feb 2008
"The Living Daylights" is a disappointment for several reasons. The biggest reason is the surprisingly unengaging plot. The second reason is that Timothy Dalton doesn't seem comfortable playing James Bond. He's not a bad actor but instead of making his own interpretation of the character (like he didin the next movie, Licence to Kill) he seems to be imitating Roger Moore. The reason is most likely that the script was written with Moorein mind. Lois Maxwell was replaced by Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny & she didn't seem right for the part at all.

"The Living Daylights" was not a good start for Dalton. Luckily the series did improve.

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Licence renewed - By: Trevor Willsmer, 12 Dec 2007
As with George Lazenby, the brevity of Timothy Dalton's tenure as Bond - due to years of legal problems & lawsuits between EON & MGM/UA - has led to history merrily being rewritten by the press that once hailed him. Dalton, not the lawyers, was lined up as the fall guy with Pierce Brosnan the man who saved the series from disaster (even though Dalton's first Bond saw a massive increasein takings over Moore's last film). Those who are quick to dismiss him would do well to check out The Living Daylights.

Much of the scapegoating of Dalton seemed to come from the confusion of actor & role. At the time Dalton's Bond was the closest to Fleming's creation - more so than Connery, even - & given the right script he proved outstandingin the role. After Roger Moore's 12-year, seven-film tenure as Bond finally came to an ignominious end with A View to a Kill, as with OHMSS, Live & Let Die & Casino Royale, the producers brokein their new Bond with a more low-key, low-gadget approach, resultingin the best Bond since the Sixties, with Dalton initially looking the first Bond to seriously rival Connery. Where Connery had the danger & Moore the class, Dalton managed to combine both, with Bond's self-assurance that verges on the arrogant down pat, reclaiming the character from the increasingly comic-strip approach of too many of the later Moore films.

The film isn't without its faults - Caroline Bliss isn't up to much as Moneypenny, Maryam D'Abo's a bit of a wet leading lady while Jeroen Krabbe lacks the menace he brought to No Mercy - but it looks & feels like a classic Bond film, has little truck with gadgets & is lessin thrall to silly jokes. Best of all, it's got a plot (involving a dubious defection, Mujahadin opium smugglingin Afghanistan & a re-activated Stalinist spy assassination programme). The political background may have dated - this was filmed when the Communists still held the USSR together & when the Mujahadin were the good guys - but it still comes up remarkably fresh. This is Bond with all the stops pulled out but without the overkill. The production values are superb & visually it's a treat, especiallyin widescreen, with John Barry making his final Bond score his bestin years. The action scenes are often outstandingly good, with a return to the kind of good old vicious punchups that vanishedin the latter Moore years & as well as some amazing stunt work involving a Russian troop plane & it has one of the series' best pre-title sequences, with a security exercisein Gibraltar turning into the real thing. The makers even have the confidence to remove Bond from one of the key setpieces - a superbly staged kidnapping from a safehouse, which runs nearly a full reel. John Glen's direction is so spot-on here it's hard to see why it would go so horribly wrong on Licence To Kill.

The extras package is excellent, including audio commentary, an extended scene & the infamous deleted `magic carpet' sequence, a bad idea that feels like a holdover from the Roger Moore era that was thankfully dropped due to the stunt looking distinctly unimpressive. There are enough new features on the two-disc Ultimate edition to make an upgrade worthwhile for the more ardent Bond fans - several promo featurettes from the original release, a press conference heldin Vienna & 47-minute TV special `Happy Anniversary 007.' All the features from the original DVD release have also been included.