I'm with you On thisone Henry. Dalton did the best portrayal of 007.
My Favorite Bond movies. 1. For Your Eyes Only (Roger Moore) 2. Living Daylights (Timothy Dalton) 3. Casino Royale (Daniel Craig) 4. Licence To Kill (Timothy Dalton) 5. Live And Let Die (Roger Moore) 6. You Only Live Twice (Sean Connery)
Least favorites: 1. Quantom of Solace (Danel Craig) 2. Die Another Day (Pierce Brosnan) 3. From Russia With Love (Sean Connery) 4. Octapussy (Roger Moore) 5. A View To A Kill (Roger Moore)
After a lifetime (well, almost) of loving this JB007 franchise, Skyfall was such a huge disappointment that it dented my enthusiasm. But with such a positive thread title I have to contribute!
For me, you can't separate the actor from the film so whilst Timothy Dalton is my favourite, too, that's linked to his two films. Sean Connery gave the best ever portrayal of the character, in Thunderball, but his follow up showed a far less interesting take and much of my enjoyment of You Only Live Twice (1967) comes from the non-Sean Connery elements.
My top six, for pure enjoyment: 1: Thunderball (1965) - SC 2: OHMSS (1969) - GL 3=: The Living Daylights (1987) - TD 3=: Licence to Kill (1989) - TD 5: Octopussy (1983) - RM 6: For Your Eyes Only (1981) - RM
Bottom six - all enjoyable to some extent but failing in too many ways to be considered great JB007 films: 19: GoldenEye (1995) - PB 20: The Spy Who Love Me (1977) - RM 21: Die Another Day (2002) - PB 22: Quantum of Solace (2008) - DC 23: Spectre (2015) - DC 24: Skyfall (2012) - DC
Though on another day I might have put Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) in place of GoldenEye; and as I've watched Spectre only once I might push it up the list - a place - after a second viewing.
A bigger question for me is whether I should put Never Say Never Again (1981) - SC in at 24 ...
I thought Falton was far too stiff in Living Daylights but he had released nicely into the role by License To Kill and I thought he was superb (and loved the movie too - serious without being the grim borefest that the series has now evolved into).
Such a shame that he didn't get to do a third movie. And there was due to be one with him but sadly that ultimately never happened and after all the well-documented legal wrangles that put a halt to the Bond series for several years he was sadly replaced.
I did prefer Brosnan in the role - or at least the first two he did - but it's a shame Dalton never got another shot.
I LOVED Timothy Dalton's 2 entries as JAMES BOND 007......PURE ACTION! THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS & LICENCE TO KILL & I have enjoyed ALL Bond Movies with different ACTORS....
I thought Falton was far too stiff in Living Daylights but he had released nicely into the role by License To Kill and I thought he was superb (and loved the movie too - serious without being the grim borefest that the series has now evolved into).
Such a shame that he didn't get to do a third movie. And there was due to be one with him but sadly that ultimately never happened and after all the well-documented legal wrangles that put a halt to the Bond series for several years he was sadly replaced.
I did prefer Brosnan in the role - or at least the first two he did - but it's a shame Dalton never got another shot.
Agreed with everything above. Dalton came to be a fine Bond, and License To Kill, for me, was a very good Bond film.
While Connery still rules as # 1, Brosnan was my second favorite Bond, but he was trapped in some of the lesser movies. He fit the role like a glove and man, oh man, I do wish he'd been given better movies.
The Living Daylights is the best all-around Bond film, in no small part thanks to Dalton's superb performance--the best 007 portrayal this side of early Connery.
Dalton was great as Bond, and I do wish he had gotten at least a couple more films to really make the role his own. He is an enormously talented actor. I also believe he is the only actor to have portrayed Bond who actually read any of the Fleming novels.
As for his films, he is one for two. I enjoy the Living Daylights quite a bit, but Licence to Kill is among my least favorite Bond films.
License To Kill is a fantastic Bond film with some of the best action set pieces of the series (the extended truck chase at the climax is just brilliant), a truly gorgeous and well written Bond girl in Carey Lowell (finally a Bond girl living up to Eon's usual hype about making the Bond girl something more than a sex object), a great score by Kamen (far superior to the dull and the overly-familiar music of Living Daylights) a terrific plot and the best Bond villain after Scaramanga, a baddie with huge depth who is almost likeable).
And Dalton is simply wonderful in the film. Gone is the stiffness if his previous entry - here he is relaxed and enjoying the role.
License To Kill also managed to achieve something that all the recent entries into the 007 series have failed miserably at; It manages to take a gritty and "realistic" situation but still include rousing and entertaining action scenes and great humour. It also gives us a dark, broody and violent Bond who isn't the dull thug that Daniel Craig is.
Literally the only thing I don't like about License To Kill is that bloody awful winking fish in the final shot. Having just directed an simply brilliant Bond movie, whatever possessed John Glen to close the movie with a gag that would have been embarrassing even in a Roger Moore Bond?
Mike, you and I rarely agree on anything but there are exceptions and your summary of Licence to Kill very much reflects my views ... except:
As you'd expect, I can't agree with you re: Michael Kamen's music score v. John Barry's superb (last JB007) score for The Living Daylights. One of the things that let this second TD film down is the score. It's good but it sounds so much like Die Hard / Lethal Weapon that it's only the James Bond Theme which distinguishes it. In the earlier film John Barry's beautiful melodies ring so true as JB007 that to hear earlier incarnations as part of the rejected score to The Golden Child is really weird.
I don't mind the winking fish at the end, either, but you're right re: the balance of humour throughout the film. So much better than the Daniel Craig lines ... I watched Spectre for a second time last evening and the best humorous line comes from the awful Q re: Bond bringing back his car in one piece.
Carey Lowell's Pam is excellent (I do like Maryam d'Abo's Kara, too) and as a whole both films have perfect casting (I could have done without Julie T. Wallace's comic character and John Terry's Felix Leiter was a bad choice from the earlier film) but I suppose Caroline Bliss's Moneypenny was a Miss
