The Living Daylights

Just two years after Roger Moore's final James Bond film, A View To a Kill, The Living Daylights released in 1987 and would see the introduction of Timothy Dalton as 007. After over ten years of Moore in the lead role, the franchise set course to bring itself back to Ian Fleming's books with a more spy focused story set around the Cold War, and takes its title and one of the early scenes from one of the author's short stories. So farewell to the clown costume and anymore ventures into space!

The Living Daylights sees Bond working to assist in the defection of a high ranking Russian general and soon uncovers plans for an arms deal that could prove highly dangerous if plans on the other side of the Berlin wall went ahead by some unscrupulous individuals. 

With John Glen returning to direct, The Living Daylights is a highly entertaining piece of action and espionage with Dalton giving a great performance that aligns very closely with Fleming's literary agent. The story does feel as if the stakes aren't always that high but this really adds to the realism and some charm in the film as it lets the story steadily unfold over the course of two hours which never goes over-the-top to its benefit. 

Dalton brings plenty of charm, wit and charisma as if he is several films into the franchise already and works very alongside the returning Desmon Llewelyn, Robert Brown and Geoffrey Keen. He also shares some good chemistry with Maryam d'Abo even if she make not rank as one of the most memorable Bond girls but who still works perfectly within the film. It is unfortunate though that Dalton doesn't really have a great Bond villain to go against here where we might hope to see more of that wit but John Rhys-Davies, Jeroen Krabbé and Joe Don Baker still play their parts very well.

The Living Daylights has plenty of highly entertaining moments, some fun action sequences (especially the one on the plane), a nice mix of locations, a couple of surprisingly tense moments and enough humour to not make this feel like such a jarring transition from Moore. It is a shame though that this would form one half of Dalton's Bond films as I really wish we got to see more of his portrayal of 007, which feels expertly lifted from the books and is a delight for any fans to watch him at work. Newcomers, might find it a tad too grounded at first but give it time as this is a thrilling Bond film and deserving of all the acclaim it receives.