Timothy Dalton's debut as a more introspective James Bond is the only striking thing about this 14th 007 entry. It opens promisingly pre-credits but plumbs depths of banality thereafter. It's not even shoddy film-making, it's just bafflingly dull and uninteresting.
Dalton, a surprise but inspired choice, hasn't quite got the presence of Connery or Moore, but he hints at an intensity that might have developed into something closer to Ian Fleming's original conception.
But he gets little help from behind the camera. The plot, an unintriguing yawn about arms-smuggling, would have seemed out of date in a TV episode of 'The Saint' 20 years previously. Worse, both main villains are vague, buffoonish characters that exude no menace whatsoever.
John Glenn's direction is characteristically nerveless. An ex-editor, he handles the thrills moderately efficiently but seems indifferent to the rest of the story. A tired, desultory music score by John Barry, once a mainstay of the series, further slows down the action. And it's a poor Bond pic that can't come up with even one set of any interest! In fact, why do men's toilets feature even once in a Bond film, never mind twice?
Likewise, Alec Mills' photography can't find any real visual interest in Gibraltar, Tangier or Morocco. In the early Bonds, Ted Moore could establish the drama and exoticness of a location in just a couple of shots. Mills lends nothing in the way of mood apart from a parting shot of ice-covered mountains in the twilight, as Dalton and heroine D'Abo flee the KGB.
If it wasn't for Dalton's debut you'd wonder why they bothered. These daylights are barely alive.
Dalton, a surprise but inspired choice, hasn't quite got the presence of Connery or Moore, but he hints at an intensity that might have developed into something closer to Ian Fleming's original conception.
But he gets little help from behind the camera. The plot, an unintriguing yawn about arms-smuggling, would have seemed out of date in a TV episode of 'The Saint' 20 years previously. Worse, both main villains are vague, buffoonish characters that exude no menace whatsoever.
John Glenn's direction is characteristically nerveless. An ex-editor, he handles the thrills moderately efficiently but seems indifferent to the rest of the story. A tired, desultory music score by John Barry, once a mainstay of the series, further slows down the action. And it's a poor Bond pic that can't come up with even one set of any interest! In fact, why do men's toilets feature even once in a Bond film, never mind twice?
Likewise, Alec Mills' photography can't find any real visual interest in Gibraltar, Tangier or Morocco. In the early Bonds, Ted Moore could establish the drama and exoticness of a location in just a couple of shots. Mills lends nothing in the way of mood apart from a parting shot of ice-covered mountains in the twilight, as Dalton and heroine D'Abo flee the KGB.
If it wasn't for Dalton's debut you'd wonder why they bothered. These daylights are barely alive.