The Living Daylights

It’s not difficult to see why Timothy Dalton had such difficulties smoothly slipping into James Bond’s iconic shoes, as The Living Daylights, the actor’s first go-around as 007, ultimately comes off as one of the most ineffective and flat-out dull entries within the ongoing series. The storyline, which revolves around Bond’s efforts at preventing a sinister arms dealer (Joe Don Baker’s Brad Whitaker) from starting World War III, has been augmented with a whole host of underwhelming elements, including an almost egregiously uneventful midsection and a sporadic emphasis on melodrama, and it’s subsequently impossible to deny that the film often possesses the feel of a run-of-the-mill ’80s actioner. Dalton’s rugged work as the world’s most famous secret agent admittedly fits the tone of the proceedings, yet there’s little doubt that the actor is lacking the charisma that one has come to associate from the character. And, as inevitably becomes clear, even if one were willing to overlook the film’s various problems, The Living Daylights suffers from an unusually tedious third act – in which Bond fights side-by-side with Afghan rebels – that feels as though it’d be more at home within a Rambo flick. Such antics are exacerbated by the inclusion of an almost uniformly bland series of action set-pieces, although, admittedly, it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of Bond’s cargo-plane battle with a particularly tenacious henchman (an interlude that unfortunately falls into the too-little-too-late category). The end result is a Bond adventure that has little to offer even the most ardent of 007 fans, as the exceedingly bloated nature of these movies has never been more evident (or problematic) than it is here.

** out of ****