We all owe Timothy Dalton an apology. Turns out he’s quite good in the role of James Bond, even if his first of two shots at bat, The Living Daylights, is not an all-star entry in the 007 franchise.
Befitting of its time — near the end of the Cold War — Daylights pits Bond against the ever-fearsome KGB, but also the ever-formidable Joe Don Baker (Walking Tall) as a gluttonous arms dealer. Honestly, the plot is overwritten with the usual geopolitical brouhaha that could drive you crazy on first viewing, so just worry about following the fun as 007 traipses ’round the world with Kara (Maryam d’Abo, Xtro), a Russian cellist he meets cute when she tries to assassinate the KGB agent Bond helps to defect (Jeroen Krabbé, The Fugitive).
If you’ve ever wanted to see Bond on a roller coaster as part of a carnival date, you’re in luck! This is the one for you. However, coming in at the back end of the ’80s, Daylights feels curiously past its sell-by date, starting with one of the series’ worst theme songs, by a-ha, the Norwegian pop act that already had peaked. Meanwhile, Desmond Llewelyn’s Q demos a literal ghetto blaster in a missile-launching boombox, and a bad guy infiltrates supposedly secure grounds by tossing milk-bottle bombs.
Still, with old pro John Glen (Octopussy) directing the penultimate in his record-setting run of five 007 films, count on action sequences executed with clockwork precision. As good as the scenes are that kick off the plot and then bring it to closure — the latter while hanging out the open cargo bay of an airborne plane — two others are more deserving of mention. The first is the prologue, in which a military paintball exercise suddenly gains life-or-death consequences; the second finds Bond and the bland Kara fleeing pursuers by riding an open cello case down a ski slope. Snow has been exceedingly kind to this franchise, no matter who dons the tux. —Rod Lott