Licence to Kill (1989)

Director: John Glen

Cast: Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. I was a boy and I had access to TBS. That’s the usual way one takes in the entire Bond canon. It was strange that I took that in just as Goldeneye (1995) was approaching its theatrical run, which meant this film was the most recent release in the series. Even then, it felt like a relic from some other era.

Did I Like It: I’ve been dreading re-watching this one a little bit. I’m so enamored of The Living Daylights (1986) and remembered as a boy not liking this one nearly as much that I’d be really underwhelmed in the here and now. While I don’t find this to nearly be the nearly-perfectly calibrated Bond-delivery device that Daylights remains, it is good. Quite good. My long-held belief that Dalton walked so that Daniel Craig could later run remains undiminished. The attempt at actually bringing the Fleming books to life is on full display, as this is ultimately closer in spirit and plot developments to the novel Live and Let Die than the film which shares its name.

The film is not without its more whimsical Bond-fun, opposed to what its reputation might suggest. It’s a delight to see Desmond Llewelyn’s Q get to do far more and serve the second act (that part of many Bond movies which can become interminable) far more than he is normally allowed.

Even one of the often annoying habits of the series is indulged with in a mostly pleasing, ultimately subtle way. The series can’t help but follow the trend of successful recently movies. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) is huge, and we get Moonraker (1979). Still not happy about that one, forget that it all happened before I was born. Batman Begins (2005) revitalizes a flagging franchise, and we go back to the beginning with Casino Royale (2006). Thank God. Here, though, while one might get a bland feeling from the drug trafficking plot, I can’t help but notice that Michael Kamen replaces John Barry*, and both Robert Davi and Grand L. Bush appear in parts of varying sizes. Tell me this film isn’t the way it is due in no small part to Die Hard (1988), and I’ll just be forced to shake my head.

The positives outweigh the negatives, though, and I can’t help but lament the fact that we didn’t get more outings with Dalton. The series would likely not have taken the shape it has now if he had, but one more might have been nice. His Goldeneye would have been something.

*Should anyone have replaced John Barry? Fair question. One also gets the sense that by the time we got to the 21st century, even the series itself is attempting to mimic Barry’s sweeping scores.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Director: Mike Hodges

Cast: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow, Timothy Dalton

Have I Seen It Before: Never.

Did I Like It: It’s probably one of those films that you had to take in at an early age, and then spend the rest of your life passionately and without reason*, and I came to it far too late. Even the always-welcome presence of Timothy Dalton (doing his best to not look vaguely embarrassed by the proceedings) can’t ultimately turn me around on it.

And really, I should be in the mood for it, right? I’ve been on a pulpy-action kick as of late, and if there is a film pulpier than this, I’m not sure it ought to be released to an unsuspecting public.

So why doesn’t it work for me. I offer three potential explanations. It feels like it is straddling two different eras of this type of film, with Star Wars – Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) being the line of demarcation. Before Star Wars, anything with even an ounce of pulp in it was treated as not just an adventure film, but exclusively children’s fare. See Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975) for the last (great?) example. After Star Wars, every movie was at least trying to be Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Flash Gordon has a lot of the big budget trappings (minus a handful of some of the dodgier SFX of the era), but never seems like its willing to make the pulse pound any more than it might otherwise. Some might call it camp, but it may have taken us a couple of years to learn this lesson**, but camp needs to be funny, and this ain’t it.

This might have all been covered up if Gordon himself (Jones) could carry the day through with his charisma. The Shadow (1994) might in fact be a terrible movie, if it weren’t for the fact that Baldwin took his obligations as an authentic movie star seriously for the last time. I understand the stiff-as-a-board qualities of Jones aren’t necessarily his fault, as Dino De Laurentiis chased him off before filming ended, but it is hard to ignore it.

But really? I’m just annoyed that Flash plays football vocationally. I’m not sure I get sci-fi fans thinking that’s a plus.

*I say that without judgment. I’ve got those films, too. Short Circuit (1986) comes to mind. Let’s not bring Batman (1989) into this if we can help it.

*After we fully internalized the implications of Batman (1966) and Batman & Robin (1997).

The Living Daylights (1987)

Director: John Glen

Cast: Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo, Joe Don Baker, Jeroen Krabbé

Have I Seen it Before: I could keep going over the mid-90s heyday of the TNT Bond marathon and how it steeped me all things 007 during the height of the Pierce Brosnan era. Let’s just leave it at the fact that I’ve seen all of them.

Did I Like It: First of all, I like Timothy Dalton a lot. Screw you if you can’t deal with that.

This has almost nothing to do with the fact that he is in The Rocketeer (1991) and therefore deserves an appropriate level of adulation. Well, I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with that. In truth, before Daniel Craig come on to the scene, Dalton was doing the brave and thankless work of picking up the pieces from the Roger Moore era and bringing the material back to its Ian Fleming core. Dalton even kind of looks like Hoagy Carmichael, long mentioned as the closest real-world equivalent for the look of the literary Bond.

This isn’t to say that Ian Fleming is a faultless paragon of literary virtue. Far from it, but when the film series was more interesting in adapting the Bond of the books, the films became much more interesting and far less fixated on reliving the format solidified by Goldfinger (1964).

The plot works, and even manages to keep me engaged through the long second act of Bond films, where you are most likely to find me slowly nodding off. The less said about the need of 1980s action cinema to turn the Mujahedeen into quirky allies the better, as that routine had a shelf life of about fifteen years before Bond would be sent to snuff out Kamran Shah (Art Malik) in my personal Timothy Dalton fan fiction*. 

The gadgets are great, aside from the racist-in-a-way-that-only-Ian-Fleming-would-like Ghetto Blaster. Sinful even more so because it has no role in the plot to follow, but the key chain and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage absolutely slaps. I will have words with anyone who says otherwise. A-ha’s title track is a toe-tapper, but the last time John Barry would hold a baton for a Bond film deserves much more of a moment in cinematic history than this film enjoys. The opening sequence that sees Bond the only survivor of a training exercise gone wrong is actually one of my favorite opening sequences, made only better by the fact that the rest of the film is imminently watchable.

Top all of that off with the realization that the death of Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) is the direct inspiration for one of my personal favorite pieces of short fiction I ever wrote, “50 Miles to Somewhere North of Cambodia.”

Is it possible The Living Daylights is actually one of my favorite Bond films. I’m going to call it. Yeah. It’s definitely up there with the Craig films for me, and even up there with the early Connery films. I’m owning that from now on.

*Which doesn’t exist. I assure you.

The Rocketeer (1991)

Director: Joe Johnston

Cast: Bill Campbell, Alan Arkin, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton

Have I Seen It Before?: Oh, my goodness, yes.

Did I like it?: I haven’t seen The Rocketeer in at least five years, but I’ve probably seen it dozens upon dozens of times since it’s ill-fated release in 1991. Every single time I watch it, I’m floored by how much I am enamored of it. Such is the way when you re-visit one of your favorite films of all time.

Some might say it’s too much like the Indiana Jones films for its own good. I dare say it has an equal—if not even higher—spot in my heart than even Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Some might say it’s too silly for its own good. Those people need to lighten up. Some might say it was too smart (with at least a pop-cultural sense of history) for the audience of children for whom it was intended. Those children could grow into the film. I know I did.

Along with Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) it is quite possibly the film most influential to the work I do here on the site.

I love every performer in the film, from the guy who plays W.C. Fields (Bob Leeman) perfectly problematically (although, the camera work does most of the leering work here), all the way to the lady singing Cole Porter songs at the South Seas Club (in case you were wondering, she was Melora Hardin, which only makes her singing as Jan Levinson in The Office that much better).

I love the James Horner score so much that I very nearly considered canceling my Apple Music subscription when I realized they didn’t have it. When Disney Junior started airing a CGI series where Cliff Secord’s 7-year-old great-granddaughter takes to the skies as a new Rocketeer, I resented it at first, because the Rocketeer shouldn’t be for 7-year-olds, it should be for me. Then I realized I was 7 in 1991, so I got over it. Screw it, I may still watch it. It’s The Rocketeer, for pity’s sake.

I love this movie. If there are flaws in it, I cannot or will not see them. For my money, it is the single greatest thing currently on Disney+. It is objectively one of the top ten things on Disney+, and if you’re not watching it right now, I’m not sure what to do with you.