The Living Daylights - it just gets better and better... (Page 6 of 7)

We're back, we're bad,
you're black; I'm mad!

The best.

This is the first Bond film I saw in the cinema. I adore Dalton's performance in this film. He has some great moments. In the sequence just after Saunders is killed look at the subtle shifts of emotions he communicates in less than a minute of screen time. From his lines 'bad accident back there' he tries to protect Kara from the truth, then he's suspicious of Kara when she says she knows Whittaker, then he's slightly hurt when Kara mentions Koskov and then venomous when she asks if he heard from him..."yes, I got the message." Brilliant work and it's little things that Dalton brings to the performance that make it so rewarding rewatching his Bond films.

I liked that some of the humour was character-driven, like Kara insisting they go back for the cello, Moneypenny's skee-whiff specs, Bond changing the wine from the one on the shopping list and - perhaps most subtly - near the end, in Afghanistan, when Bond creeps around a corner and Kara is, for a moment, too distracted to follow him. Such stealth is obviously new to her.

I rewatched it this weekend, and while a few of the comedy elements really do stick out (mainly in the beginning) and Felix Leiter is perhaps needlessly shoehorned in, and Brad Whitaker might've been better off recast (I never liked Joe Don Baker in any of his Bond appearences), I think it still works, thoroughly enjoyable, the score is a great adieu to John Barry and Dalton is just brilliant. Loved it always.

I really enjoy both Dalton Bond films   

It's never going to be my number one, but I agree TLD has aged much better than many of the eighties OO7s.

This is mostly because Timothy Dalton's performance, given time and understanding, is better appreciated now than it was in 1987. His is one of the very best performances by an actor as James Bond. I like that he's serious, yet still able to pass off the Moore-esque humour which occasionally pervades. There are a couple of missteps, but that isn't Dalton's fault, more the screenwriters. His character is multi-textured. The scenes in Austria are excellent and Dalton has a real romantic spark with Maryam D'Abo's ingenue agent. You can't tell if Bond's really falling in love or if he's merely acting the part. Dalton is great too in his early scenes, all action in the PTS, dismissive of his superiors, suspicious of Koskov, reluctant to pull the trigger on his friend Pushkin. I reckon Daniel Craig watched this film a lot to perfect some of the nuances in his own portrayal.

TLD is also very Cold War, probably the most realistic Bond ever got, especially that foray to Afghanistan, where the audience [and Bond] witness the chaos of a genuine, bloody war.

I've said it before but Dalton got out without making a bad Bond film. So did Lazenby but he only made one. I've always enjoyed The Living Daylights from day one. It's still in my top 10 Bond films. Only not really top 5 because of Connery's run which probably will never be topped. I debate switching The Living Daylights with You Only Live Twice in the top 5. But you really can't go wrong with Connery's first 5 Bond films.

Never very broad shoulders, Dalton.

He could have done with working out a bit more.

We have an old saying, too, Higgybum.

And you're full of it! 

All in jest. You'll get me back I've no doubt