Licence to Kill

No, it's not that I have any problems with Timothy Dalton, on the contrary, he suits me quite well as Bond, but not the movies. Even the last installment with Roger Moore was quite a decline, which continued throughout the time when Dalton and then Brosnan were Bond. In Dalton's case, the stories are not interesting from a screenplay perspective, although "Licence to Kill" tries to bring back some past events, with Brosnan it's a complete decline, although the first two movies were still passable. I have to say I'm glad for Craig. (03/17/2014)

A hardboiled crime flick rather than a full-blooded Bond movie. The handling of the protagonist and, for that matter, the whole franchise is bold, though somewhat ill-advised. The replacement of an official mission with an aggressive quest for personal revenge, the exceedingly realistic background of the crimes (drug trafficking) and greater bloodiness (including a few gore treats) detract from the film’s lightness and the unmistakable escapism that is a trademark of Bond movies. The humour has mostly disappeared, which is a jump from one extreme to the opposite extreme following Roger Moore’s rollicking geriatric antics. If, however, you can endure the greater occurrence of chatty scenes, Licence to Kill works superbly in dramaturgical terms. By slowly tightening the screws, Bond essentially forces the villains to attack each other (the screenwriters were inspired by Kurosawa’s Yojimbo) in order to exact his definitive revenge on the repulsively cruel bad guy in the successfully intensified, action-packed climax. The unobtrusively beautiful Bond girl (Carey Lowell) elevates the film’s rating to just over three stars. 75% (07/25/2011)

It's a shame Dalton only made two Bond films. With what he was criticized for (Bond is not Bond, but rather Rambo with a British accent), Daniel Craig is now celebrating success, and Dalton's films are still seen as the weakest of the entire franchise. Licence to Kill is definitely worth seeing - it's action, action and more action from start to finish, but with humor, suspense, pretty women, the inventions of Q and his department... Well, hell, is he Bond or is he not Bond? Answer: Indeed he is. And he’s certainly not inferior! Just the kind of guy Fleming was writing about! (02/08/2010)

Dalton's second Bond film is better in terms of quality than The Living Daylights. Timothy Dalton's Bond remains cool and sharp, the action scenes aren’t blown out of proportion, and the whole film somehow feels more real. I really enjoyed it. (08/04/2016)

License to Kill has exactly the same problem through the eyes of an ordinary viewer as Quantum of Solace has in the new millennium. It is a purely genre film that is confident, fierce, with raw action, aware of "itself" and its qualities. It is not independently functional, the viewer needs to have a little insight into Bond and be able to read between the lines and make connections in order to realise they are watching the most self-aware episode, one that pushes the bar higher in terms of hard action. The same applies to the Bond girls, where for the first time we can see what will be par for the course in the coming years - confident young women, refined, elegant, "image-oriented", representing the latest fashion trends. Until then, they were, with a few exceptions (Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me), merely accessories with almost no brain activity. Here, the trademarks change a little – or perhaps adapt – and the hero himself undergoes a change, paradoxically becoming much tougher and more straightforward than ever before, and yet still being much more human than it might seem at first glance. One of the building blocks of James Bond. The truck finale is textbook quality. (05/20/2014)