The Living Daylights

It's the dawning of a new age for James Bond, heralded by a brand new gunbarrel sequence which is easily the best the series has ever seen - new Bond, Timothy Dalton has the "swing to camera" down perfect, and John Barry's theme means the gunshot occurs at precisely the moment it feels it should. A good sign or just lucky?

The pretitle sequence kicks off with a mini adventure that hides new Bond until 002 is murdered by a steely faced imposter 00, and as Bond is scared by monkeys (has John Glen gone mad? It's supposed to be pigeons that get disturbed by Bond!) he chases down the imposter - to easily the best incidental version of the James Bond theme ever - has a car chase where he is on the car, and drives off a cliff, parasailing down to a boat where our new Bond utters his first lines: "I need to use your phone". Weird? Maybe, but Timothy Dalton proves that he is perfect casting for Bond before the title song even kicks in. He's fought a villain, had a mini adventure, and gotten a girl.

In truth, Dalton shows a perfect style throughout the entire movie. Moore finally agreed to end his stint (did he just hang around to be the longest running Bond?) and Dalton was offered the role, but was unable to take it, so it went to Pierce Brosnan, who filmed the gunbarrel and was then mucked around with the producers of Remmington Steele, forcing Brosnan to leave, by which stage original choice Dalton was available again, and so Tim gets the job, and proves that he was the perfect choice. The script for "The Living Daylights" was written with Roger Moore in mind, and there is a good level of humour that Dalton manages to deliver in a way that is not quite so knowing as Moore's style. However, Dalton brings two extra things to the role - firstly a true relationship with the Bond girl that Moore really only managed to create once with Octopussy. Bond clearly cares about Kara Milovy and has her best interests at heart. Secondly, Dalton's Bond is clearly a dangerous man. When Saunders is killed, Dalton brings a true tension to Bond, a viciousness that shows he will not be pushed around. It's these tense moments that give Dalton's Bond a different edge to his predecessors, making him more like Connery than Moore, but turning the dial up just a little more. In fact, in many ways, Dalton is Bond the way Ian Fleming imagined him to be - a hired assassin who takes no real joy in his job, but is prepared to execute it ruthlessly. With Dalton taking over from Moore, some of the former Bondisms have returned; Bond once again asks for his martinis shaken not stirred and he is smoking cigarettes again (in fact I don't think Moore has smoked since Moonraker).

All the regular characters are back - Robert Brown's "M" works a whole lot better against the younger Dalton, and the relationship between Bond and "M" is more in the style of Lee and Connery the way that Terence Young created it. "M" tolerates his best agent but wont accept him disobeying orders. Desmond Llewellyn gets a little more to do in the movie, with "Q" showing up in the opening sequence to help Bond in General Giyogi Koskov's defection. Geoffrey Keen and Walter Gotell return as the Defence Minister and General Gogol, but both appear for a very, very short time this movie - in Gotell's case it was because of his poor health. But, with Moore's departure, the wise decision was taken to recast Miss Moneypenny - now the beautiful blonde Caroline Bliss, who is more like Penelope Smallbone in Octopussy than the Moneypenny we remember. Also, after a considerable absence, we get the return of Felix Leiter, but sadly he is portrayed by John Terry and there is absolutely no conviction in the performance and no chemistry with Dalton. It's easily the worst casting of the movie.

There are a lot of similarities to Octopussy in this movie, actually. Aside from those mentioned, the short story "The Living Daylights" appears in the movie, although in this instance the opening sequence is essentially the short story; it's not just recounted. Equally we get two villains in the movie - the super suave Yogi Koskov played by Jeroen Krabbe and American arms dealer Brad Whitter, played by Joe Don Baker. Both play their parts excellently, although Krabbe's accent is truly bizarre, starting off as a bizarre Russian before ultimately becoming standard European. This may, though, be deliberate to show Koskov deceiving the English at the beginning of the movie. Baker gets a few short scenes before the final showdown at the end of the movie, and we get to see a great gunbattle.

Maryam D'Abo plays the only Bond girl for the movie (if you discount Linda in the pretitle sequence) and she plays a very naive and, well, pretty useless character. That said, and to be fair, she is a musician, not a secret agent, and it's perhaps no great surprise that she can't really hold her own in a fight against a Russian soldier. However, the fact is that she is very beautiful and easily likable, and that makes it very easy to like her. That said, Dalton gives a great performance when Bond is trying to communicate to Kara to drive her jeep onto the Hercules jet - the look on his face is priceless.

Their are a whole range of brilliant characters in this movie, all brought to life by some exceptional actors and actresses. Villainous henchman Necros is portrayed by former ballet dancer Andreas Wisniewski, and aside from a disturbingly blank performance by the actor in question (so blank he appears not to feel pain, although it's never really confirmed if that is the case), the direction and editing makes him even more scarier; a brilliant move is to have the Pretenders' song "Where Has Everybody Gone" constantly playing on Necros' walkman, meaning we hear Necros before we see him. Thomas Wheatley plays Saunders, Bond's contact in Czechoslovaki; initially a hindrance to Bond's activities, he ultimately comes through for Bond when he realises that Koskov has duped them in faking his defection. There's a very good chemistry between Dalton and Wheatley (in fact if only this had been the relationship between Bond and Leiter...) and Bond's anger at Saunders death seems completely believable and one can't join in the desire for revenge Bond gets. Finally, John Rhys Davies plays the new KGB boss General Leonard Pushkin (initially this character was supposed to be General Gogol, but Gotell's health meant that was impossible - as a consequence Bond and "M" both appear to know this new General very well, despite us never seeing him before) and again there is a great relationship between Bond and Pushkin that makes the relationship very believable. The scene where Bond threatens to kill Pushkin in order to discover what Koskov is doing is very, very tense. One of the things that the Bond films has done really well is to show the KGB chiefs - be it Gogol or Pushkin - as sensible humans, rather than ruthless psychotics.

Outside of casting there are a whole lot of other great things that make this movie. John Glen who has revitalised the Bond series seems to have gotten a bit more inspiration with a new Bond (and he does disturb those pigeons!), and so there is a whole lot of new things going on, including the return of the Aston Martin - now a Volante - chock full of gadgets. Indeed there seem to be far more gadgets in this movie than in the last three movies, but all are used rather well, and Bond doesn't seem to rely on them particularly. The fight scenes are particularly effective in this movie, from a brilliant opening fight between Necros and a MI6 butler (and it's great to see that he isn't a pushover; clearly MI6 train all their agents well, no matter what position they hold) to a rather disturbing fight at a jail in Afghanistan, and two great fights at the end - one between Bond and Necros in midair, and the shootout between Bond and Whittaker. All the locales are exotic and shot very beautifully - be they Vienna, Czechoslovakia, Tangiers (although with the morning wailing I was put in the mind of the Pink Panther films for a moment). The script is particularly well written with some wonderful lines for everybody in the film, and a very complex plot; possibly the most complex of all the Bond films (think about it...it's not as staightforward as it appears). And, of course, Kara says "Oh, James" at the end of the movie, wrapping everything up nicely.

I have no complaints with this movie, so I don't have bits and bobs to mention, but I would like to make note of the music in this film. The Living Daylights is performed by a-Ha, and we've already mentioned that the Pretenders perform Where Has Everybody Gone; but it's also worth noting that for the first time we get a special closing song - If There Was A Man, again performed by the Pretenders. These three themes all appear in John Barry's incidental music which is the best score he has ever written for a Bond film. I've already mentioned his amazing Bond theme, but music like that which accompanies Bond and Kara's journey to the Muhajadin's headquarters is simply sumptious. It's perhaps appropriate, then, that Barry actually gets to make a cameo appearance in the film as the conductor of Kara's orchestra at the end.

After twenty-five years, and fifteen Bond films, the producers have shown that, not only have they not lost originality, but they are at the top of their game. This is the best Bond movie ever.

Favourite Bond: 1. Timothy Dalton; 2. Roger Moore; 3. Sean Connery; 4. George Lazenby
Favourite movie order: 1. The Living Daylights; 2. On Her Majesty's Secret Service; 3. Dr No; 4. A View To A Kill; 5. Live And Let Die; 6. Thunderball; 7. For Your Eyes Only/Octopussy 8. The Spy Who Loved Me; 9. From Russia, With Love; 10. Goldfinger; 11. You Only Live Twice; 12. Moonraker; 13. The Man With The Golden Gun; 14. Diamonds Are Forever
Favourite Bond girl: 1. Claudine Auger/Dominio; 2. Diana Rigg/Tracy; 3. Carole Bouquet/Melina; 4. Barbara Bach/Anya; 5. Maud Adams/Octopussy 6. Mie Hama/Kissy; 7. Daniela Bianchi/Tanya; 8. Ursula Andress/Honey; 9. Jane Seymour/Solitaire; 10. Maryam D'Abo/Kara; 11. Lois Chiles/Holly; 12. Honor Blackman/Pussy; 13. Tanya Roberts/Stacy; 14. Britt Ekland/Mary; 15. Jill St John/Tiffany
Favourite Bond villain: 1. Donald Pleasance/Blofeld; 2. Gert Frobe/Goldfinger; 3. Christopher Lee/Scaramanga; 4. Jeroen Krabbe & Joe Don Baker/Koskov & Whittaker; 5. Christopher Walken/Zorin; 6. Louis Jordan & Steven Berkov/Kahn & Orlov 7. Adolfo Celi/Largo; 8. Michael Lonsdale/Drax; 9. Yaphet Kotto/Mr Big-Dr Kananga; 10. Julian Glover/Kristatos; 11. Joseph Wiseman/Dr No; 12. Lotte Lenya/Klebb; 13. Telly Savalas/Blofeld; 14. Charles Gray/Blofeld; 15. Curt Jurgens/Stromberg