I've recently started watching again the four 'Lethal Weapon' movies, for their nostalgia value, and I've got as far as #2. The Michael Kamen scores bring to mind LTK, as do parallels between Sanchez's murder of Della and the ways in which successive 'Lethal Weapon' villains menace Murtaugh's family - making it personal, as was vogueish in late 80s actioners.
Just finished watching 'Lethal Weapon #4' (1998). It has Kamen's best actìon score of the four and shows what he might have been able to offer had he returned to the Bond series after LTK to score any of the Brosnan films. (Not that I'd wish away Arnold).
For example, Kamen's excellent suspenseful action music in #4 for the fight in Murtaugh's house, when Lorna (Rene Russo) takes on the traffickers, is in his familiar style but approaches Barry's standard closer than the LTK work. Edit: this is actually a reprise of the cue for Russo's kick-assing action scene in LW #3 (also scored by Kamen) so I guess that would definitely make it 'Lorna's Theme'? From 1:24: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EX4zlIJjQ7A&list=PLohYzz4btpaTFWzLu_FXq_UmuLMZ2yFzl&index=20
Critics and material I don't need. I haven't changed my act in 53 years.
Goodness!
Give Bond a rest for a few months and bugger me if the best thread in years doesn't materialise...
Special thanks to SofD for starting this. I am quite exhausted of all opinion after reading only page 1.
Well done to all
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Surely part of the reason that Licence to Kill did worse box office is due to its certification?
I really like Licence to Kill and it doesn't drag. I don't think there was enough space between TLD and LTK for people to accept the change in tone - had it been a longer gap, and therefore more of a reboot, people would have been open to it. I think had Casino Royale been many years earlier, he would have been great in it because what he wanted to do with Bond complemented Casino Royale.
I really like Dalton but the issue is that he isn't a male fantasy; men don't want to be him and can't imagine themselves as a fantasy version of him.
Good points. Having a Bond movie or two between TLD and LTK that were written for Dalton, but less serious than LTK could have prepared the audience for LTK. They could also use the opurtunity to (re-)establish David Hedison as Leiter with the audience.
Dalton isn't a male fantasy in the way Moore was. Moore played Bond as a womanizing playboy who saw soting as something to do between the drinks and the ladies. I'm exagerating of course. But did men want to be though, fit and strong like Moore's Bond, or did actors like Steve Mcqueen and Charles Bronson fill that urge better?
Another point I think I've made before is that the few cases of humor in LTK could have been fixed by making Pam funny. Bond couldn't make lots of funny quips because of the plot (and Dalton?) and Lupe too was also in a situation where joking wouldn't for her, but Pam could be more lighthearted. I've often imagined a version of LTK (directed by Ridley Scott) with Geena Davis as Pam. Davis could easily do the action scenes, but she had done comedy too in Fletch and Beetlejuice too.
I just spent another hour re-reading this excellent thread. I didn't really comment on it back in 2020.
I agree mostly with the theory that the 15 rating [the UK rating] probably hurt business. It removed the ability of younger audiences to watch the film at all - by younger I mean early adolescents, e.g. 12 - 15. This is a core demographic for cinema. It is the age at which children are begun to be treated more as adults and go to the cinema alone or in groups. There was no '12' or '12A' in 1989, so parents were removed from the decision making process as to whether a child could watch or not. Had that rating been available, I suspect LTK would have been a 12A and its audience much higher. In the UK at least.
However, even if business had been brisk, the film still has a raft of difficulties, most notably the lack of humour - or rather the inclusion slapstick humour - Q as a superficial make-do agent, the interchangeable villains - who are too numerous - the interchangeable plots - too numerous - the dull heroine, the ineffective femme fatale, the Barrelhead Bar western style fist fight, the dopey PTS, the lack of an obvious romance, I could go on.
I do like Robert Davi, his scenes with Dalton are very impressive. The rest of the cast is slumming it. But then they aren't given a decent enough script to work with. I agree also that John Glen was rather past it by now. He'd done well to re-invigorate Bond in TLD - just - but this was a bland directional piece. I hated the stunts, even in 1989, and I thought the final tanker chase was over the top.
Curiously, I dislike all the Lethal Weapon movies, chiefly because the violence is over the top, the humour leaden and the acting dreadful - Mel Gibson included - no amount of stunts could make me like them. I wonder if that's why I'm ambivalent towards LTK.
@caractacus potts makes a point I'd never even noticed before, that LTK is a heavily veiled retelling of Fleming's TMWTGG and he's spot on; many of that novel's circumstances are replicated, although updated for the film's modern benefit. It's a pity Michael G. Wilson, who wrote most of LTK, didn't utilise more of Fleming's dialogue and scenes to create a more rounded narrative.
Comments
" Accounting for the quarry" Fox hunting term
The Dying Days
"The spectre of defeat..."
I like "Blood from a stone", but I'm not sure.
I like "Blood from a stone", but I'm not sure.
"Blood from a stone" implies both violence and toughness, so is a pretty good fit for LTK...
"The spectre of defeat..."
And Bond is tough like a rock and does bloody work.
It may work!
Take you to court over it
Yes the old " Back to the future"
Legal defense.
Just finished watching 'Lethal Weapon #4' (1998). It has Kamen's best actìon score of the four and shows what he might have been able to offer had he returned to the Bond series after LTK to score any of the Brosnan films. (Not that I'd wish away Arnold).
For example, Kamen's excellent suspenseful action music in #4 for the fight in Murtaugh's house, when Lorna (Rene Russo) takes on the traffickers, is in his familiar style but approaches Barry's standard closer than the LTK work. Edit: this is actually a reprise of the cue for Russo's kick-assing action scene in LW #3 (also scored by Kamen) so I guess that would definitely make it 'Lorna's Theme'? From 1:24: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EX4zlIJjQ7A&list=PLohYzz4btpaTFWzLu_FXq_UmuLMZ2yFzl&index=20
Give Bond a rest for a few months and bugger me if the best thread in years doesn't materialise...
Special thanks to SofD for starting this. I am quite exhausted of all opinion after reading only page 1.
Well done to all
-{ -{ -{
Surely part of the reason that Licence to Kill did worse box office is due to its certification?
I really like Licence to Kill and it doesn't drag. I don't think there was enough space between TLD and LTK for people to accept the change in tone - had it been a longer gap, and therefore more of a reboot, people would have been open to it. I think had Casino Royale been many years earlier, he would have been great in it because what he wanted to do with Bond complemented Casino Royale.
I really like Dalton but the issue is that he isn't a male fantasy; men don't want to be him and can't imagine themselves as a fantasy version of him.
Good points. Having a Bond movie or two between TLD and LTK that were written for Dalton, but less serious than LTK could have prepared the audience for LTK. They could also use the opurtunity to (re-)establish David Hedison as Leiter with the audience.
Dalton isn't a male fantasy in the way Moore was. Moore played Bond as a womanizing playboy who saw soting as something to do between the drinks and the ladies. I'm exagerating of course. But did men want to be though, fit and strong like Moore's Bond, or did actors like Steve Mcqueen and Charles Bronson fill that urge better?
Another point I think I've made before is that the few cases of humor in LTK could have been fixed by making Pam funny. Bond couldn't make lots of funny quips because of the plot (and Dalton?) and Lupe too was also in a situation where joking wouldn't for her, but Pam could be more lighthearted. I've often imagined a version of LTK (directed by Ridley Scott) with Geena Davis as Pam. Davis could easily do the action scenes, but she had done comedy too in Fletch and Beetlejuice too.
I just spent another hour re-reading this excellent thread. I didn't really comment on it back in 2020.
I agree mostly with the theory that the 15 rating [the UK rating] probably hurt business. It removed the ability of younger audiences to watch the film at all - by younger I mean early adolescents, e.g. 12 - 15. This is a core demographic for cinema. It is the age at which children are begun to be treated more as adults and go to the cinema alone or in groups. There was no '12' or '12A' in 1989, so parents were removed from the decision making process as to whether a child could watch or not. Had that rating been available, I suspect LTK would have been a 12A and its audience much higher. In the UK at least.
However, even if business had been brisk, the film still has a raft of difficulties, most notably the lack of humour - or rather the inclusion slapstick humour - Q as a superficial make-do agent, the interchangeable villains - who are too numerous - the interchangeable plots - too numerous - the dull heroine, the ineffective femme fatale, the Barrelhead Bar western style fist fight, the dopey PTS, the lack of an obvious romance, I could go on.
I do like Robert Davi, his scenes with Dalton are very impressive. The rest of the cast is slumming it. But then they aren't given a decent enough script to work with. I agree also that John Glen was rather past it by now. He'd done well to re-invigorate Bond in TLD - just - but this was a bland directional piece. I hated the stunts, even in 1989, and I thought the final tanker chase was over the top.
Curiously, I dislike all the Lethal Weapon movies, chiefly because the violence is over the top, the humour leaden and the acting dreadful - Mel Gibson included - no amount of stunts could make me like them. I wonder if that's why I'm ambivalent towards LTK.
@caractacus potts makes a point I'd never even noticed before, that LTK is a heavily veiled retelling of Fleming's TMWTGG and he's spot on; many of that novel's circumstances are replicated, although updated for the film's modern benefit. It's a pity Michael G. Wilson, who wrote most of LTK, didn't utilise more of Fleming's dialogue and scenes to create a more rounded narrative.