Bond update - The Roger Moore years finished, the brief Dalton period done and the beginning of Brosnan.
A View to a Kill
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This one didn't really grip me. It was fine, I suppose. I'm sure the whole Silicon Valley thing was kind of topical at the time too but it just hasn't aged the best. I like the idea of Walken as a Bond villain but he was just going through to motions a bit it felt like. I did like the ending on the Golden Gate Bridge. The Grace Jones character was maybe my favourite thing about it, she was cool. This one has maybe the weirdest of the "Bond getting caught with his trousers down at the end of the film" moments too, where Q tracks him down with his weird remote control robot and catches him at it in the shower. Also, we can file this one in the "good Bond themes" category I think! 5/10
The Living Daylights
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I really like Dalton's take on the character. He's not really the "for Queen and country" type of guy at all. He's a bit more jaded but he plays him the most believably (so far) as a stone cold, professional killer, I think. Like as a guy you would not want to cross. Roger was like this gadget wielding, wise cracking lothario with the raised eyebrow and the witty quips. Which was cool. Dalton plays him as a man who is believable as somebody who goes out in the field and, you know, kills people as his job. I just wish they had leaned a little more fully into that. Because it's a great change of pace and much more grounded and gritty but there are still a couple of more goofy bits (he rides the cello case down the bloody mountain to escape, that sort of thing) when it could have done with a clean break from that I think. Still a good film though. 7/10
Licence to Kill
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So this one is great, and it's like they took on board what I was thinking about the previous one RE it not going all the way serious and ran with it, to an extreme. I read this is the only one to have ever had a "15" rating and I can see why. They murder Felix Leiter's wife and then half feed the poor bastard to sharks, for fucks sake. Bond off the reservation on a revenge mission is just class. Again it sort of emphasises this side of him as somebody who you don't want to fuck with, and who can work on his own and really make life hell for the people in his sights. I loved it. I wish Dalton had got another crack of the whip because I just really, really enjoyed his version of the character. 8/10
Goldeneye
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Another great one. Brosnan is a cool customer. He's got a lot of charm. He delivers the stereotypical Bond one liners with a sort of dryness that I really like. And he does have a lot of great one-liners in this. The opening with the dam jump and him and 006 on the mission is the best Bond opening so far, I would say.
I liked the villains. Alec Trevelyan is great (
"For England, James?") and Bean plays him really well. Famke Jansen is class in this too, she's so unhinged. Good supporting characters too. Jack Wade (who assume has come along because, continuity wise, Felix is crippled now!),Valentin, Boris - these are all fun characters. I would argue Judy Dench cements herself as a superior M just in the space of this one film, too.
Brosnan tearing around Saint Petersburg in a tank is an all time great scene. Something about him periodically popping his head up out of the hatch while driving (straightening his tie at one point

) is just proper cool and very Bond. As much as I love him in it I found myself wondering what Dalton would have done with it though. Because I think the story very much felt like it would have worked in his Bond universe too.
8/10