The Living Daylights Review
Blame it on the age of AIDS and safe sex, or simply an attempt to produce a kinder and gentler James Bond, but The Living Daylights was supposed to usher in an era of the notorious ladykiller becoming a one-woman man. Never mind that a new love interest would eradicate Bond's monogamy in License to Kill (1989) -- for the moment, at least, audiences got to enjoy the quaint images of Timothy Dalton and Maryam d'Abo in such chaste pursuits as holding hands and riding a ferris wheel. That this would become a focus of Dalton's first Bond movie says a lot about what the rest of the film has to offer. Dalton's two Bond films clearly found the franchise at a low point, but The Living Daylights is at least lighter on its feet and more fun that the dark and violent License to Kill. The plot is almost headache-inducing, but the set pieces are carried off with veteran Bond director John Glen's usual panache -- including a thrilling Aston Martin gadget sequence and an airborne escape in a Jeep -- so fans weren't ready to have Dalton's head just yet. Dalton is certainly debonair enough, but he's humorless -- any good Bond needs to learn to lighten up. The Living Daylights marks the first appearance in the Bond series of Joe_Don_Baker, though he would be better known for a different character, the talkative good guy Jack Wade in Goldeneye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Derek Armstrong, Rovi
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