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Rather than staying the course and touching up smaller cracks from a solid reboot, director John Glen and Dalton decided to take another sharp turn with License To Kill.
“A vengeful James Bond goes rogue to infiltrate and take down the organization of a drug lord who has murdered his friend’s new wife and left him near death.”
Director: John Glen
Writers: Michael G. Wilson, Richard Maibaum, Ian Fleming
Cast: Timothy Dalton, Carey Lowell, Robert Davi, Talisa Soto, Desmond Llewelyn, Robert Brown, Caroline Bliss, Everett McGill
Release Date: July 14, 1989
IMDB
Timothy Dalton brought a grounded approach to James in his debut movie The Living Daylights. Rather than staying the course and touching up smaller cracks from a solid reboot, director John Glen and Dalton decided to take another sharp turn with License To Kill.
In Dalton and Glen’s farewell to 007, the MI6 special agent no longer serves Queen or country. Instead, Bond goes on a brutal revenge mission. The stage for the movie is set when Felix Leiter’s wife is killed on their wedding day, and Felix himself is mauled from the waist down after having been tortured by sharks. License To Kill amps up the violence and villainy in a way that seems forced. For example, one of the movie’s opening scenes has the villain Franz Sanchez whipping his girlfriend, Lupe Lamora. It’s uncomfortable and not earned one bit.
There is the tone that License To Kill takes, and then there is the execution. Neither component is strong. Why are moments of comedic absurdness still popping up for a movie that wants to appear more hard-nosed than previous adventures? The 18-wheeler doing a skateboard trick to avoid a rocket launcher is just preposterous.
License To Kill steers itself clear off the road and becomes a cascading debacle. There are some spontaneous moments where an explosion can catch your eye, but the end result is a pile of rubble that will rust forever as a sad shade of forgettable.
STANKO RATING: D
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Alright, we have our first bad Sean Connery James Bond movie. It has happened.
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