Licence to Kill (1989)

Starring: Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

This was not a Bond film.  It was about 007 and was a part of the franchise, but it wasn't a Bond film, not in the way that we've come to know (and love?) Bond.  In a lot of ways it actually really reminded me of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, except with a better lead.

Bond (Dalton) and his DEA friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison, last seen in Live and Let Die) come together to assist in the capture of drug lord Franz Sanchez (Davi) before going to Leiter's wedding.  All is fine and dandy and the wedding goes off with a hitch... until Sanchez escapes and attacks Leiter and his wife, raping and killing her and having him maimed by a shark.  Bond finds out and embarks on a mission of revenge, without the approval or assistance of MI6 (although Q (Desmond Llewelyn) does pop in for the typical gadget giveaway).  Fortunately, though, he does have the assistance of ex-Army pilot and CIA informant Pam Bouvier (Lowell), because all Bond really needs is a mission, a few gadgets, and hot chick by his side.

There was a lot about this movie that really reminded me of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, although not really in a good way.  There's a lot that seems to be trying to set Bond up as something more than a playboy, and throughout the entire wedding scene I couldn't help but feel like the film was going to end with another wedding scene (and subsequent death), like it's precursor did.  Let me make this clear; I think Bond is somewhat of a sexist pig, constantly going from one sexual conquest to another, at times even having multiple consorts at one time.  It's what makes Bond Bond though, and attempts to change that - especially when they forget that they changed it for the next movie.  There's a sort of consistency that the movies where he's just a playboy has, and a disconnect that the ones where he tries (or pretends) to be something more have.  It's rather annoying.

Playboy issues aside, the whole drug lord revenge plot was both really good and really not Bond.  Part of who Bond is is this element of MI6, and removing him from that in such a way - for the revenge of the death of this woman we've never seen before and this man who we don't really remember from a Bond several movies back.  While I don't mind the idea of Bond going rouge, it just doesn't work as well with the incarnation of this Bond - especially if you think about the emphasis that they put on him being the guy who follows the rules (kind of) in The Living Daylights.  It was a good plot idea, and it was a good movie overall... it just wasn't very Bond-y.

The Living Daylights (1987)

Starring: Timothy Dalton, Joe Don Baker, Maryam d'Abo, Art Malik, John Rhys-Davies, Jeroen Krabbé

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: B

The Living Daylights returns us to the USSR and issues with the KGB.  This time, Bond (Dalton) is searching for KGB General Georgi Koskov (Krabbé), who defected to the British only to be abducted and presumably taken back to Moscow.  Being the gentleman that he is, Bond uses cellist Kara Milovy (d'Abo), Koskov's girlfriend, in an attempt to track down Koskov.  He's also been directed to track down General Leonard Pushkin (Rhys-Davies), who has allegedly revived the KGB policy of Smert Spionam, or Death to Spies.  Meanwhile, arms dealer Brad Whitaker (Baker) is in the process of procurring American arms for the Soviets to use in Afghanistan.

Dalton's Bond isn't as slick as his predecessors, both in appearance and technique.  While he's sill got that charm and arrogance he appears to rely more on the gadgets and what not - and while I was willing to forgive the cliches of the earlier movies simply due to their age, I'm less willing to forgive the cliches of these later movies.  Shooting lazer beams out of a car is just lame, regardless of the decade.

Despite the fact that Dalton isn't as slick as Roger Moore was, I think I actually might prefer him.  Yes the movie's cliched, Bond is too dependent on his gadgets, but at least this movie wasn't completely ridiculous and over the top.  You can kind of tell that the filmmakers are trying to shed some of the humour of the earlier Bond films, which given the way the humour's been going in the last few films I don't really see that as being a bad thing.  The Living Daylights isn't nearly as tongue in cheek as it could have been, but it's not as ridiculous either.  It definitely went on a bit long, but I overall enjoyed it.

A View to Kill (1985)

Starring: Roger Moore, Christopher Walken, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Robert Brown

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: D

Bond (Moore) is at it again, this time investigating something to do with microchips and atomic bombs and what not and it all really made absolutely no sense to me.  What I did follow, though, was the girl, Stacey Sutton (Roberts), who is the daughter of an oil tycoon whose company has been taken over by the villain, Max Zorin (Walken).  Definitely not my favourite Bond girl, but I did really like Walken as the villain.  I've found that it really doesn't matter what it's in, when Walken acts it's great.  He doesn't necessarily save the movie, but he does make it a bit easier to take.

What helps Walken is the overall stunts.  View's biggest problem is the plot is absurd and Moore is, at this point, becoming a bit old to play the character of Bond, and the overall gender of one of the villains (May Day, played by Grace Jones) makes it so that Bond can't comfortably kill her.  Where the film attempts to redeem itself is in the stunts, which are fun and pretty much what you expect from an 1980s era action film, and Walken is definitely a great villain worthy of a classic Bond film.  In the last few movies I've been a bit bored by the villains and annoyed by the fact that they all either seem to be a part of a government organization or just weird individuals who have too much money.  While Walken's Zorin isn't part of some greater organization like SPECTRE and has ties to the KGB we still at least get some idea of who he is and why he is that way.  Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever say it, but I kind of miss SPECTRE.

A couple notes.  With this film, we're saying good by to a few people.  The most obvious is, of course, Roger Moore, who retires as Bond after this film.  So far, I'd say he is my second favourite Bond, well above  George Lazenby, but far below Sean Connery.  The second goodbye is to Lois Maxwell who played Miss Moneypenny in the first fourteen Bond films.  One of the best parts about these movies is the dynamic between Moneypenny and Bond - the woman who's always present, often flirting, and yet never in Bond's bed.  A far more subtle leaving is Maud Adams, the only Bond girl to appear in three Bond films.  Adams was first seen in The Man in the Golden Gun then again in Octopussy, where she played Bond's love interest of the film, first Andrea Anders then Pussy Galore.  In View she only plays the role of an extra, but it's still significant if only because she's the only Bond girl to appear in three films.

Octopussy (1983)

Starring: Roger Moore, Geoffrey Keen, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Steven Berkoff, Desmond Llewelyn, Kristina Wayborn, Kabir Bedi, Robert Brown, Douglas Wilmer

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

I went into this movie with a lot of doubt and hesitation.  One of my biggest complaints about this series as a whole has been the depiction of women and I was rather concerned when I saw the title.  I mean... Octopussy?  Really?  It's not the worst name for a woman that the Bond films have used, but it's pretty much up there.  The fact that this is one of the more recent films - it's from the eighties! - makes this a more bothersome fact.  I would hope that these movies would be getting less misogynistic as they go on, but alas.

Octopussy sees Bond (Moore) investigating the murder of another MI6 agent, 009 (Andy Bradford), and the replacement of a Fabergé egg with a fake.  Bond travels the world in order to find 009's killer and... along the way meets a woman named Octopussy (Adams) and uncovers a plot to detonate a nuclear warhead on an American army base.  Along the way there's also a ridiculous bit at the circus, because everyone wants to see Bond dressed up as a clown.

Honestly, I'm really not sure just what the hell happened in this movie.  It was just.... so very, very weird.  I'm not sure if I would say that I disliked it so much as it confused me and left me uninterested.  It tries to be serious but at the same time fails to be so in a way that just doesn't really work.  When it was on I wasn't really annoyed by it, but when it was over I wasn't really disappointed that it was over.  Actually, I was more relieved, which is never really a good sign for a movie.  James Bond, you can do better.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Starring: Roger Moore, Julian Glover, Carole Bouquet, Chaim Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

James Bond (Moore) is back, this time in an attempt to retrieve the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) from a British spy boat that has sunk in the Ionian Sea.  While there, Bond must also investigate the deaths of marine archaeologist Sir Timothy Havelock (Jack Hedley), who had been trying to locate the sunk boat for the British prior to his death.  If you suspect that Sir Timothy had a daughter who Bond ends up sleeping with, you'd be right. Her name is Melina (Bouquet), and she covers both For Your Eyes Only's racist and misogynist components.  Honestly, a part of me is starting to wonder if I'll miss the misogamy and racism once we start to get to the really contemporary films.  Rounding out the film is Greek intelligence informant Aristotle Kristatos (Glover), who guides Bond in Greece, Kristatos' protegee, figure skater Bibi Dahl (Johnson), smuggler Milos Columbo (Topol), and Columbo's mistress Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris).  Surprisingly, only one of the two women in that list sleep with Bond, although not for lack of trying, but I'm not going to tell you which one fails to succeed.

A review of For Your Eyes Only by Derek Malcolm in The Guardian states that the movie is "too long...and pretty boring between the stunts."  This is pretty much exactly how I felt about For Your Eyes.  The stunts themselves were cool, but the movie overall was just long, dull, boring, and forgettable.  Having watched it all I can say is that I don't really care about it enough to comment much on it. It was unremarkable, and to comment further would be to pay too much attention to such a movie.  I will say, though, that I'm looking forward to being done with the Roger Moore Bonds.  I'm not a big fan of his.