James Bond...The best & worst of - part 3

So Roger Moore finished his run in 1985 (2 films too long as previously discussed) and the search for a new actor to play James Bond was on. Originally, the producers wanted Pierce Brosnan for the role but Pierce was contractually bound to Remington Steele and NBC wasn;t going to let him do it. That led to Shakespearean trained actor TImothy Dalton. Dalton actually on a short list when they were looking for Connery's replacement but Dalton bowed out because at 22 he felt he was too young.

Dalton's contributions to the 007 franchise were The Living Daylights (1987) and License To Kill (1989). I recently watched Daylights again (I can not recall ever viewing it when it came on tv) and it was a lousy movie. Maybe not as terrible as A View To A Kill but lousy enough. The plot tries to be complex but the cast doesn't seem to either be able to or want to pull it off. The female lead is played by Maryam d'Abo, not to be confused with the more talented Olivia d'Abo. Maryam is about as annoying as you can get and I don't want to say that she's untalented (47 acting credits from 1983-2011) but it sure looks that way here as this was her first big studio picture. Dalton didn't fare much better. There are times when he's got that edge then they are times when he gets almost whiney. It didn't help that the writing was not that great either. The plot has its moments but they are few and far between, at least it wasn't the standard megamaniacal billionaire industrialist who wanted to destroy large portions of humanity.

License To Kill sees Bond quit MI6 to avenge to attack on his old CIA pal, Felix Leiter. He goes after a drug lord and leaves a trail of bodies in the wake. This should have been a good film. Bond is out on the edge bent on taking down an international drug lord, sounds good right? You'd think so but things just don't work out they way they should. Dalton is never really quite on the edge as you'd like him (in both of his films he just seems rushed to me) even when guys die a gruesome death (that one guy whose head explodes when it appears that he betrayed the drug lord thanks to Bond). The entire tractor trailer chase seen is so ridiculous it almost destroys the movie (I will say it hear now now that as Class A driver, it's never a good idea to have a tractor trailer chase scenes in a movie). This was the best of the two Dalton/Bond films but that's not saying much. It's the least forgettable of the two, that's better. Though a very young Benicio Del Toro has a cameo as henchman to the drug lord.

So it appears that Dalton was a failure but I don't think that anyone could've have saved those 2 films. Dalton then gets dropped (or quits) and Pierce Brosnan is able to take the role of 007 in 1995 after 6 years with no James Bond. Here's Brosnon's list of films:

• Goldeneye (1995)
• Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
• The World Is Not Enough (1999)
• Die Another Day (2002)

Pierce Brosnan did a really good job as James Bond. He brings the edge that Connery had as well as the debonair and charm that Moore brought to the character.  The Brosnan films were not nearly as campy as the Moore films but there are elements of the megamaniacal billionaire industrialist villain:

• Johnathan Pryce (Tomorrow Never Dies): He's a billionaire media mogul who wants to encite a war between China & Britain so he can get the exclusive rights.
• Sophie Marceau  (The World Is Not Enough): Her character's father (whom she has killed)  is a billionaire industrialist but she uses her fortune to help an international terrorist cause nuclear mayhem.
• Toby Stephens (Die Another Day): This guy is a billionaire industrialist (who was originally North Korean but had radical plastic surgery to become Caucasian) who is going to unite the Korea's under the communist yoke by killing several hundreds of  thousands (at least) Koreans in the process.

 All four of Brosnan's Bond films contain great plot elements but there's so much over the top stuff that it takes away from the plot. For some reason the filmmakers opted to throw in semi-ridiculous stunts and giant explosions that were just too much. Here are my rankings of Brosnan and Dalton's Bond films:

1. Tomorrow Never Dies: This gets the nod because I loved the teaming of Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh (from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fame, an excellent film). Yeoh does a lot (if not all) of her own stunt work so a lot of the physical work is very believable.
2. Goldeneye: Judi Dench is the new "M" and now that the Cold War is over, things are different. She feels that Bond is a relic of the Cold War and doesn't care for his methods (she lets him know this in no uncertain terms). I didn't care much for the technical aspect of the film (the Goldeneye is a satellite that can do nasty things) and one of the main villains is a renegade Soviet general much like the villain from Octopussy.
3. Die Another Day: Big fan of Bond getting caught and disavowed (who saw that coming?!) then getting exchanged for a North Korean spy. Bond breaks out of quarantine in the Falkland Islands and sets out to find out the culprit who set him up. Eventually it all breaks down as the plot twists seem implausible and are just too ridiculous.
4. License To Kill (see above)
5. The World Is Not Enough: I just didn't like this film. Denise Richardson a nuclear physicist? Really?
6. The Living Daylights: I mentioned this film earlier and there's a scene where Dalton utters the films title in reference to taking a shot at Maryam d'Abo (that right there is a deal breaker).

 When Brosnan was nearly 50 after Die Another Day and whether he left on his own or was asked not to come was a good idea. He was too old.


Part 4 will deal with Daniel Craig and the final rankings. Thanks for your time.