LICENCE TO KILL (1989)

LICENCE TO KILL (1989)

Tagline: How many times can one man leave you breathless...? If you get on his bad side, your number is up.

(Action, Thriller, Bond…James Bond) [PG-13]

Switch the bloody machine off!!!

First off, let me get to a few facts about this one. This is the 16th movie in the 007 movie series. Timothy Dalton only ended up doing two 007 movies playing James Bond in spite of a third one being planned. Apparently, legal issues with MGM delayed the movie and Dalton retired from the role. The budget for this movie also had to be lower than they would have liked because the studio was still paying back interest on MOONRAKER made 10 years earlier. 

The storyline in this one is pretty simple. Felix Leiter is about to get married and is nearly killed by a drug lord named Franz Sanchez and his pet shark. That’s right; this is the movie where the Bond villain will literally feed you to his shark. Leiter is a close friend of Bond’s, so James Bond decides to use his skills to take revenge on Sanchez even if it means using his recently revoked “license to kill”. Because we all know, 007 doesn’t give a crap about rules or any of that stuff. 

Acting wise this one is pretty solid, but it’s hard to go wrong when you bring in some of these amazing talents like Robert Davi from THE GOONIES. His performance is incredible, but clearly, he is playing a terrible character. Timothy Dalton is fine as James Bond, but to be honest, most of this performance is pretty flat. It takes about an hour before he really starts showing much emotion. I get that 007 is supposed to be a professional and keep it cool, but this whole storyline is based on revenge. He’s not even trying to save the world or something “impersonal” like that. Just kidding, saving the world wouldn’t be impersonal. Carey Lowell is solid in this as Pam Bouvier, but she also doesn’t even show up to really deliver a performance till this thing is an hour in. Talisa Soto plays the girlfriend of drug lord Franz Sanchez. She is better in this role than she is in MORTAL KOMBAT. At least in this she isn’t just asked to play a “trained killer whisperer” that hardly has any lines. I should also mention that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa who was also in MORTAL KOMBAT, shows up in this briefly. 

One thing I noticed is that Franz has an iguana on his shoulder, but that thing doesn’t seem to move at all. Is that normal? I have never owned an iguana, so I am guessing this thing is either fake or dead…watch these dots while I go check………………………okay, yep. It’s fake in almost every scene. I am glad I am not crazy. 

The score for this flick is pretty good, but at times I don’t think it captures the moment as well as it could have. When it comes to pacing we get a few lulls, but it’s not enough to get bored or anything like that. This is a James Bond film after all. There are a few crazy sequences in this that are bonkers, even for a 007 movie. I would be willing to bet, you could take a few of the scenes with Franz Sanchez getting rid of his enemies and set it to horror movie music and people would buy it as a straight-up horror flick.  

It took me a bit to get into this and I wish we had gotten a better introduction to Sanchez, but overall this is a pretty fun Bond flick while delivering some pretty gritty moments. I even got used to Dalton’s portrayal of 007 after the first hour or so. 

This is a solid 5 out of 7. I would definitely watch it again. 

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