Bond film # 16 and the second and final film from Timothy Dalton, here's my review for Licence to Kill
Plot: After Bond and his friend Felix capture drug lord Sanchez shortly before Felix gets married, Sanchez escapes and kills Felix's wife and has Felix maimed by a tiger shark. M reassigns Bond to another assignment, but Bond refuses and thus has his license to kill revoked causing him to flee and become a rouge agent. So Bond is out for revenge with the help of ex-CIA agent pilot Pam.
This is another Bond film that more or less has a lot of different views in its viewers, and one that I more or less find a little surprising. There's the people who really like it, but there's people who remarkable dislike it to the point where some think it's the worst Bond film next to A Need to A Kill. But in my case, I really enjoyed it. In fact it's probably somewhere around my third personal favorite of the series (well...so far. I mean I still have 7 more movies to go.) And quite frankly even if I found it bad, I think it's very easy to say that going so far as second worst film after some of these movies I've seen is rather utterly, hilariously too far. The main problem everyone seems to have with this film is that Dalton's Bond is being way too serious and that the film itself is too dark and all of that is really off from the Bond formula. Okay I can understand it against off the formula, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad. I meant it when I said in my last review that The Living Daylights worked a lot when there was little to no humor and it brought back the realism and suspense to the series. And here, I got a lot more then that with it being so dark and serious and as an action film and a spy thriller, that's great to me. I mean the story for one was more unique; Bond gets his license to kill revoked and become a rouge agent just to go on a vendetta. That's very new to these Bond films. In other words, they decided to take a different turn from most Bond films just like On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Which is always a good thing with these films. Then there's the villain who...yeah is still no Goldfinger, but in my opinion stand out very well - which is saying a lot compared to a lot of past villains who are drug lords or something like that. I mean rather then killing a guy who captures him, he just has him maimed by a shark and leaves him to die or get found...that's very new. I mean I expected Felix to die getting eaten by that shark without a thought. But no, this guy just wants him to survive in misery by losing some of his limbs. That's just awesome. And Pam was a very good Bond girl too. She worked more into how most people feel a Bond girl should be - beautiful, smart, dangerous, all that jazz. There's another Bond girl named Lupe who...was a little weak during her dialogue. Which is a shame because considering the problems she faces with Sanchez, I feel that she could've been a very complex and entertaining character. The action and the suspense was also great. It was bigger, darker, had way better effects, and mostly more realistic (yeah to be fair, he does that driving on just one side of tires while driving trick again only this time with a truck). We also get new gadgets and even Q sticking around helping Bond throughout a lot of the second half. And you know what? That's also awesome. It was completely different and Q was a very nice addition to the story.
And that's my review for License to Kill. I can understand why a very dark and serious Bond film will throw off people. But what they might see as a big negative use of Bond, I saw as a movie that I could take seriously and get very well into while also really enjoying how they took different turns at some certain aspects from Bond films. It's a really enjoyable film, I recommend it, and its so far one of my personal favorite of the James Bond series.
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