Review of The Living Daylights (1987) by Fil A — 01 Jul 2011

Timothy Dalton's first foray as the British secret agent is by no measure a great movie. Dalton himself tries hard in the role and was, in my opinion, not really given a fair crack of the whip. He was much, much better in Licence To Kill. The problem here is that the movie is still trying to shake off the ridiculous excesses of the 80's Bond films with some daft stunts and plain silly quips. The assassin disguised as a milkman is straight out of Carry on Spying. As a result, it feels like an uncomfortable transition to what was to come and suffers as a result.

Never the less, as with all Bond films, it is entertaining and action packed couple of hours with a gung-ho attitude and plenty of big set pieces.

Maryam d'Abo valiantly breaks the mould of the Bond girl and there is an attempt to do away with the overt sexism that the series was being criticised for by this time. There's some nice supporting roles from Art Malik and John Rhys-Davies with the old retainers in the form of Desmond Llewelyn and Robert Brown but this does feel a bit like a swan song for the old-style Bond before the grittier story lines kicked in later on.