labcoatman

A View To A Kill had been a step up from much of Roger Moore's inconsistent term as 007, which often lost itself in silliness. The Living Daylights continues this trend with a tight plot, good action, strong romance (as opposed to just sex, as is common in Bond) and solid performances from a cast of both well-known and new faces. The result is a film which is not only good Bond, but good spy-thriller.

Timothy Dalton delivers a performance by turns serious and charismatic; his Bond is a highly-trained government operative trusted with saving both his country and the world, who bears great responsibility in addition to the usual arsenal of gadgets and unlimited budget. He provides a stark contrast to both Roger Moore's buffoonery and Sean Connery's overt masculinity.

The Living Daylights survives as one of the best Bonds, though thanks to his second effort (License to Kill), Dalton is sadly often overlooked for his contribution to the Bond franchise. The fault, however, is with the latter film's dire plot and lack of Bond elements, and Dalton is an essential part of making The Living Daylights a highlight in the Bond series.

Basically, I had no inherent problems with the film - aside from all the usual implausibilities and craziness that goes on in action films - except for the fact that, even more so than the first Mission Impossible film, this film had almost nothing to do with Mission Impossible. There were so few elements of the series - the elements that made it unique - and the ones present were so poorly used, that there seemed little point in badging a fairly exciting spy action film with the M:I2 name. Not a terrible film, but not a Mission Impossible film, and that's what irritated me. Retelling and reimagining an old concept to give it new life are fine - but this is simply rebadging.

There's one main reason to see this film; sure, the story is interesting, the sci-fi concepts innovative despite their derivative nature, and the performances are all quite good, but it still remains undisputable to this viewer that Russell Crowe as SID 6.7 is a performance not to be missed.

SID is a great villain; he is repulsive, revelling in death and pain, but at the same time charismatic and very, very funny. On purpose.

Crowe laps up the role, appropriately milking it for all it's worth without stepping beyond believable menace. SID is pretty scary, and totally without morality. A cool villain, and all the reason you need to see this film, although Denzel's performance does help also.