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Tuesday, 8 July 2014

The Living Daylights

Sunday 6th July

We start with the proof that you can take paintball way too seriously… and that’s normally the point that someone swaps to using a real gun.  Although I’m not sure how professional using the Rock of Gibraltar for paintball really is, particularly considering how temperamental those monkeys can get!

The cheese is there from the off, Mr Bond, now being portrayed by Mr Timothy Dalton parachutes straight onto a privately owned yacht just as the owner is complaining that she needs a ‘real man’ the entertain her; que Bond.  Team that with the cringeworthy “What happened to him?” “He got the boot” when talking about a man Bond has just literally kicked off an aeroplane and you've got you’re tone.

Koskov has defected from the KGB so 007 is employed to get him out of Russia safely; apart from managing to upset M by refusing to shoot the pretty girl everything goes well. Until we learn the defection was fake and the pretty girl was knowingly firing blanks give the whole charade an air of believably.

A new Bond also means a new approach with the ladies, and this one is different to say the least.  No matter how much you want to impress a girl, a tuxedo is not really appropriate attire, winning her a massive cuddly toy is ridiculously cheesy but extremely effective so at least he got that one right.

Along with a new Bond with have a very shiny new Miss Moneypenny who is just as bad at flirting as the last one; I can’t imagine inviting a man round to listen to Barry Manilow ever working; then I suppose having never tried I can’t judge. I was glad to see Q hadn't changed; he might be my favourite thing about the earlier Bond films. 

Just the one Bond girl in this, Kara, who lives up to tradition and tries to kill him about halfway through and continuing to keep with tradition she switches sides straight after realising she was a fool and can’t stand to be without Bond; turning into yet another overly-clingy annoyance. I can’t understand why none of these girls make repeat appearances! 

We end up randomly in Afghanistan – maybe it’s not that random if you’re aware of geographical politics for the 80s but unfortunately that’s one of my weaker areas of general knowledge.  Gerogi, Kara’s previous employer is buying opium with diamonds that have been smuggled over among the ice used to transport organs – I liked that bit, thought it was imaginative.  Needless to say Bond’s not all that happy and several explosions later he’s saved countless New York teenagers from future drug troubles.


I quite enjoyed it from the point Kara turned on him and things actually started to get interesting. Predictable, of course; with the most anti-climactic bomb de-fusel ever but enjoyable. Until that point I was starting to wonder what all the hype surrounding the Dalton years was since not a lot was happening; the question I've been asked most about watching these films is “Have you got to the Dalton ones yet?” so I did have high expectations.

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