LICENSE TO KILL
Reviewed by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1989 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
See: A man eaten alive by a shark! See: A man impaled on the jaws of an earthmover! See: A man's head decompressed beyond recognition!
No, this is not an ad for one of those so-called video nasties, but what you can expect to see in LICENSE TO KILL, the latest James Bond film and second to star Timothy Dalton as 007.
Bond is back all right -- bigger and bolder, perhaps, but (children under thirteen take note) certainly bloodier than ever. Audiences have learned to expect girls, gadgets and great stunts from these films, but gore? No thank you, Mr. Bond.
LICENSE TO KILL is the sixteenth installment in the seemingly endless series of James Bond films which began back in the 1962 with DR. NO. Back then, Bond pictures could be considered more or less family entertainment. Irrespective of the sex and violence inherent in the films, they were never sordid or nasty. They were never unpleasant. Times, indeed, are a-changin'.
In the ensuing twenty-seven years, Bond has battled his way through several guises, a good number of dry martinis, and more than his fair share of women (an advocate for safe sex this guy is not!). But in all those years, Bond -- the man as well as the series -- has kept killing above board and respectable. In LICENSE TO KILL, however, the producers have prostituted good clean fun for explicit violence. The bloodletting is jarring, and needlessly so.
This time around, the globe-trotting Bond touches down in such exotic locales as the Florida Keys, Bimini, and the fictional city of Isthmus. On their way to the wedding of CIA friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison, in a reprisal of his role in LIVE AND LET DIE), Bond and Leiter are alerted to the fact that nefarious drug magnate Franz Sanchez (menacingly played by Robert Davi) is within striking distance, and the proceedings are quickly curtailed.
However, Sanchez quickly escapes and does the dirty on Felix, turning him into shark bait. This scene is about as uncomfortable to watch as the chainsaw sequence in Brian DePalma's SCARFACE. As the bad guy, Davi is certainly one of the most formidable villains Bond has come up against, at least in recent years. He makes SCARFACE's Tony Montana look like Mr. Rogers.
Bond swears revenge but M (Robert Brown), fearing that Bond will turn this into a personal vendetta, insists that he take on another assignment. Bond cannot and resigns, thereby having his "license revoked," the film's original title.
Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto play the Bond girls. In keeping with Bond's new found monogamy and 1980s image, ex-CIA operative Pam Bouvier (Lowell) is portrayed as a tough cookie, and not just another bit of fluff. However, it isn't long before she hauls herself out of her military garb and parades around in her underwear for a scene or two. Cute, Carey, but no Oscar nod this year, okay? Soto plays Sanchez's girlfriend-on-the-make Lupe Lamora and gets to wear a lot of red outfits, hussy that she is.
The usual wisecracks are very much in evidence -- a bloodied Felix shows up with a sign around his neck which reads "He disagreed with something that ate him." But this time the one-liners are in bad taste because they invariably follow scenes of overt violence.
In THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, Dalton's first venture into the role of British agent extraordinaire, there was on-screen nudity for the first time in a Bond movie, albeit brief nudity. Now we have an occasional profanity stirred -- sorry, shaken -- into the proceedings. Some might call it keeping up with the times, others a lowering of standards.
Gladys Knight performs the snappy GOLDFINGER-inspired title song and it's the best musical motif in the film. In earlier films, John Barry's score was as much a character as the villain or the Bond girls themselves, and it is sorely missed in this picture. Michael Kamen, who appears to be scoring every other movie release this summer, steps in for Barry on LICENSE TO KILL, but his contribution is mostly flat and hopelessly derivative.
The Bond films have always tried to top each other in terms of spectacular stunts, and LICENSE TO KILL is no exception. In fact, the film's memorable conclusion is probably one of the most explosive action sequences ever put on celluloid.
But the problem with the film is the tone, plain and simple. Over the years the character of James Bond has slowly, imperceptively segued from secret agent to super-hero. He has, in his own way, become an indestructible force in the movies, a caricature of sorts. Nowadays, Bond is much like Freddie Krueger or Jason Voorhees, whose wheelings and dealings this film often seems to imitate.
Moviegoers will have to wait a little longer for the latest incarnations of those familiar faces this summer, but if your appetite for that kind of murder and mayhem needs to be whetted sooner than that, you might want to check out LICENSE TO KILL first. You won't be disappointed.
| Directed by: John Glen David N. Butterworth - UNIVERSITY OF PA | | Rating (L. Maltin): **1/2 Internet: butterworth@a1.mscf.upenn.edu |
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