The Living Daylights (1987)
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The Living Daylights Movie Review
The Living Daylights is a 1987 spy film directed by John Glen and starring Timothy Dalton. It is the fifteenth Bond film and the first one starring Dalton.
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“We have an old saying too, Georgi.
And you’re full of it“
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The plot is nothing to write home about per usual. What I liked about this film is that they brought back the strong spy elements that have been lacking from the previous silly installments. I liked those quite a bit, but the story itself is uninspired, dull and entirely forgettable with the villains and most of the action lacking.
So The Living Daylights is very much a new James Bond film and by that I mean that it doesn’t resemble the previous films starring Roger Moore at all. This can be thus considered a reboot and the first truly serious Bond film more in the vein of ‘Dr. No’ and ‘Goldfinger’.
However, it doesn’t quite work. I admired some of its serious storytelling and solid action and I would take this film over most of the previous silly and ridiculously campy offerings any day. The camp and the silliness is thrown off the roof here and that was refreshing to witness, but still that did not make this movie great.
That is because it went into overly serious territory and the series could just rarely manage to strike the appropriate balance. Here everything is super serious with no moments of humor or fun to be had whatsoever. I want humor from Bond and here I never got that.
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I also did not get enough memorable locations and sexiness. This Bond is not too much concerned with sex and thus that felt weird and too different. However, I still liked that he was romantic and certainly the film is highly romantic and charming at times with a solid relationship at the center of it.
The Bond girl is memorable and sweet and Timothy Dalton is definitely good in the role, albeit not really fitting it in terms of humor as he is never funny and he doesn’t really try. He is suave, handsome and charming, but never funny unfortunately.
The Living Daylights basically acts as a reboot to the entire series as it introduces us to new Bond in Timothy Dalton and much less silly and campy approach. It went into more serious territory and although I liked and that and the romance is charming, the film still felt too serious and it needed at least some humor and fun as it thoroughly lacks in those departments.
