 The Living Daylights (1987) Whereas the Roger Moore-era Bond flicks knew they were ridiculous, this one stumbles around like your adolescent brother trying to play "Purple Haze" on his new Squier Stratocaster®. It thinks it's being cool, but really it's just embarrassing itself. At various points, Bond dodges milk-bottle grenades, checks out a missile launcher built into a "ghetto blaster," goes sledding, and, in one of the more improbable sequences – goes on a date to an amusement park. I'm not even joking. Like, a real date, eating cotton candy, riding bumper cars, etc. Since when did James Bond actually romance his ladyfriends? At first I figured this would be a setup for some kind of murder, but it went on far too long. Was this film written by a 12-year-old boy?
Dalton is unremarkable as Bond, neither cheekily humorous like Roger Moore, beguilingly sexy like Sean Connery, or smugly debonair like Pierce Brosnan. I was moved to ask: "Was this a performance, or did someone just fart?" The plot is woefully under-the-top, the cinematography looks like the average episode of "Police Woman," and the dialogue is mind-numbingly pedestrian. It's like they were trying so hard not to make a Roger Moore Bond movie that they decided not to make a movie at all. The DVD features a deleted scene wherein Bond appears to ride a magic carpet. This movie could have used some of that shit. And saddest of all, a-ha's music video for the theme song is significantly more exciting than the film itself. Though I was moved to ask: "Was that a song, or did someone just fart?"
Review by La Fée |
