The Living Daylights (1987)

Directed by John Glen. Starring Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo, Jeroen Krabbé, Joe Don Baker, John Rhys-Davies, Art Malik, Andreas Wisniewski, Thomas Wheatley, Desmond Llewellyn, Caroline Bliss, Robert Brown, John Terry, Geoffrey Keen, Julie T. Wallace. [PG]

Dalton’s debut as James Bond makes for a colder, harder, leaner secret agent, a nice relief from the Roger Moore era, and far closer to Ian Fleming’s original creation; pity, then, that he’s saddled with an adventure where so few satellite elements meet his challenge. Globe-trotting Cold War thriller depicts a defection-switcheroo that sends Bond after a treacherous Russian general (Krabbé) and an American arms dealer (Baker) while romancing cellist d’Abo. A grounded but convoluted story, nifty gadgets (including an Aston Martin loaded with tricks and treats), and some top-tier stunts and action scenes keep it entertaining enough, but childish d’Abo is kind of a drag as the only true Bond girl in sight, and the villains are instantly disposable (Krabbé is a wimp and Baker is a buffoon). Without these familiar 007 formula elements hitting their marks, the film suffers an identity crisis in the final third, hardly even resembling a James Bond movie when Bond battles the Soviet renegades in Afghanistan with the help of the Mujahideen (or the tacked-on final confrontation with Baker at his “compound”). Final film in the series to be scored by John Barry; shrugworthy title tune performed by Norwegian pop group A-ha, with a different song (by the Pretenders) playing over the end credits. The amusement park Ferris wheel will look very familiar to fans of The Third Man.

67/100