After Roger Moore overstayed his welcome— (and that’s no fault of Moore’s— the producers kept offering him more and more money to come back— who can blame him?) Bond had lost his way. The character had gotten so far away from the steely cold killer of Ian Fleming’s novels that Don Knotts could have replaced him and we probably would have been okay with it.
But now we get Timothy Dalton. Dalton was one of the actors considered to take over when Connery left but that the time he was in his early 20s and it was felt (rightly so) that he was too young for the role. Things eventually worked out and Dalton slid into the Bond role and made a remarkable Bond. Not only did he look more like the Bond in the novels (Fleming described him as having black hair, a steel gaze and a face like a tough Hoagy Carmichael) he took the no-nonsense approach of the books as well.
They replaced Moneypenny in this one— and they gave Bond some new gadgetry but the villain of choice? Joe Don Baker? Really? Bond villains are always kind of exotic like the locales and having Baker was sort of like setting a Bond film in the rural hills of Virginia. Overall a big improvement from the last few Bonds but really, antything would be better.
James Bond will be back in LICENSE TO KILL.
BOND: Dalton isn’t Connery and he isn’t Moore but he’s his own man. ****
THEME MUSIC: Pop Duran Duran type stuff. ***
VILLAIN: The weakest part of the whole thing. **
OVERALL BOND RATING: 8.5 Give us a world class villain and this one would hold up much better. *** 1/2