Licence to Kill

It's a shame Dalton only made two Bond films. With what he was criticized for (Bond is not Bond, but rather Rambo with a British accent), Daniel Craig is now celebrating success, and Dalton's films are still seen as the weakest of the entire franchise. Licence to Kill is definitely worth seeing - it's action, action and more action from start to finish, but with humor, suspense, pretty women, the inventions of Q and his department... Well, hell, is he Bond or is he not Bond? Answer: Indeed he is. And he’s certainly not inferior! Just the kind of guy Fleming was writing about! (02/08/2010)

A hardboiled crime flick rather than a full-blooded Bond movie. The handling of the protagonist and, for that matter, the whole franchise is bold, though somewhat ill-advised. The replacement of an official mission with an aggressive quest for personal revenge, the exceedingly realistic background of the crimes (drug trafficking) and greater bloodiness (including a few gore treats) detract from the film’s lightness and the unmistakable escapism that is a trademark of Bond movies. The humour has mostly disappeared, which is a jump from one extreme to the opposite extreme following Roger Moore’s rollicking geriatric antics. If, however, you can endure the greater occurrence of chatty scenes, Licence to Kill works superbly in dramaturgical terms. By slowly tightening the screws, Bond essentially forces the villains to attack each other (the screenwriters were inspired by Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) in order to exact his definitive revenge on the repulsively cruel bad guy in the successfully intensified, action-packed climax. The unobtrusively beautiful Bond girl (Carey Lowell) elevates the film’s rating to just over three stars. 75% (07/25/2011)

Dalton is the biggest failure in the history of the Bond series. Let me explain. After the fading era of "Moore" films, an actor came who had great charm, physical potential and the willingness to advance the character, but the production was based on a traditional directing team and screenwriting. In The Living Daylights, the conflict of views is not yet as pronounced, and the ambitions and traditions clashed most markedly here. The effort to bring emotions and the private sphere into play was fulfilled only on the part of the main character, who perfectly combines "iconic" poses (casino) and private characteristics (Bond is a closed loner who, when he does not play the role of an invincible agent with irony in his eye, looks tired, timid, and even frightened in frightening situations). The screenplay attempts to create a story shift, incorporating an overlap (to samurai films and the revenge movie genre), a change in the well-established style, where the story does not serve as an awkward transition "from stunt to stunt", but when the narrative is the alpha and omega. But the key storyline with revenge is unfinished and incomplete, and in the end it captures the superficial props again, and so Dalton and his desire to "understand Bond as a human being" is a soldier in the field. Even John Glen, however much he has moved more towards a realistic style (depicting violence, but also action scenes), still relies on proven trademarks - the problem is that he has never shone explicitly during his five-film Bond career, and he did not take the chance to seize the series in his own way in this film either. Despite all the criticism, it is an excellent feat, referring in many ways to In Her Majesty Secret Service and, thanks to Dalton, shifting the potential of this rejected work. It is a terrible pity that Timothy did not have time to meet Martin Campbell and his contribution to the Bond universe was so fully utilized by Daniel Craig. But it still occurs to me that Licence to Kill was actually ahead of its time - by trying to transplant the myth into a more realistic world and give it "roots" and feelings. It is understandable that at the time when the movie theatres were showing Indiana Jones, Back to the Future 2 or Lethal Weapon 2, it might have seemed quite foolish... perhaps James was only surprisingly close to Burton's Batman. (09/24/2012)

Dalton's second Bond film is better in terms of quality than The Living Daylights. Timothy Dalton's Bond remains cool and sharp, the action scenes aren’t blown out of proportion, and the whole film somehow feels more real. I really enjoyed it. (08/04/2016)

It's not that I have any problems with Timothy Dalton, and I actually quite like him as Bond, but not the films themselves. The last installment with Roger Moore was already quite a decline, which continued essentially throughout the times when Dalton and then Brosnan played Bond. With Dalton, the stories aren't interesting from a screenwriting perspective, although Licence to Kill tries to revisit some past events. With Brosnan, it's a fairly complete decline, although the first two installments were passable. I have to say that I'm glad we got Craig. (03/17/2014)