Directed by John Glen

Starring: Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo, Jeroen Krabbé

Rated PG

After 12 years of having Roger Moore play the role of James Bond, it was finally time to have a new actor step into the role. Timothy Dalton stepped into the Bond in the mid to late 80’s with critical success. The Living Daylights centers around Bond who is tasked with finding out why someone is killing spies. In a complicated plot, Bond faces off against an arms dealer (played by Joe Don Baker) who is also tied to the Soviet-Afghan War and a Soviet defector (played by Jeroen Krabbé).

Re-watching The Living Daylights was enjoyable to say the least. Although still having some humor in the film, it was interesting watching Dalton bring his own interpretation of Bond to the big screen. There are some elements of dark moments in the film, but it wouldn’t be until Licence to Kill where these malarial would be fully fleshed out. It was a nice change of pace to not see jokes after jokes in the film, but considering the screenplay was written with Moore in mind, it still has the feeling of a lighthearted film.

Along with the tone, the story is finally brought back to reality. I know it is custom to have these types of story lines be about a manic wanting to destroy the world. While it is enjoyable to view those types of plots, it can be a bit tiring to watch film after film. The Living Daylights stepped away from the outlandish plots we’ve seen in the Moore era to a more grounded one. The story of an arms dealer wanting to sell weapons is not the most exciting, but a nice change of pace. It’s almost as if the series saw itself speeding ahead and decided to slow down once Dalton came on board.

While the film is enjoyable to view, unfortunately, the main villain of the film is dull and forgettable. At first, it is hard to distinguishing who the main villain is. But once we know who the main villain is, there is nothing memorable about him. The only memorable thing about him is that he plays with historical wax figures and that’s about it. He poses no threat to anyone in the film and doesn’t even seem menacing at all. Over the years, Bond villains are known to be memorable, whether its good or bad, and this one doesn’t bring anything to the table. It’s unfortunate to say that Joe Don Baker as Whitaker is probably one of the worst Bond villains.

But with that being said, the film is a decent telling of a spy story that is based in reality. The film finally moved away from Moore era jokes and focused on telling a story with humor as an after thought. While the film does have a terrible villain, this is not an element that drags the film entirely down. Overall, its a nice entry in the Bond series that has some redeemable qualities that is worth a watch.

3/4