★★★★ Watched 7 Aug, 2023

Rewatching this Bond movie that I have not seen in decades was an interesting experience. I remember not being particularly impressed with it when it came out and I can see now it was because of its seriousness and gruesome nature of some scenes compared with earlier films (particularly with Roger Moore era). It seems that contemporary reviews were not very positive, but the film got a more favorable response later on.

Probably the highlight, which is mentioned in many reviews, are the amazing death-defying stunts. Even more so from today’s perspective of mostly digital stunts (done for safety reasons), since at that time all stunts were done in camera by actual stuntmen. Timothy Dalton also insisted on doing a lot of the stunts himself. Reportedly out of all, he’s the Bond actor that did the most stunts himself, although I’m not sure if that statement got updated with the stunt work of Daniel Craig. This movie features a great collection of action scenes happening underwater, in the air, and in/on the fast road vehicles. Another exception to the rule is a delightful character Q, played by Desmond Llewelyn in 17 Bond films, who finally gets a proper part, not just a brief appearance. To round up the main male cast Robert Davi is a great classy Bond villain, but a nice surprise was Benicio Del Toro as his henchman in his first big movie role!

I would be amiss not to mention an important evolution of the Bond girls played by Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto, both a departure from damsel in distress in most of the Bond movies up to that time. Soto perhaps less so, but Lowell was actually very close to a full-on action heroin played by Ana de Armas in the latest No Time To Die (2021)!

Looking back I can appreciate the bold attempt to bring the Bond movie formula closer to Fleming’s books as it clearly stepped away from the goofiness of the Roger Moore era. But it was too soon, as the audience was not ready and they had to go through a lighter Brosnan’s era to embrace more serious Daniel Craig’s interpretation.

For some reason, I clearly remembered reading in a news report around the movie release that a stuntman died during the filming of the truck chase scene, but after some research, I must have mixed up either with a serious injury of a stuntman in The Living Daylights (1986) or more likely the death of a crew member during the accident on the set of Goldeneye (1995).

Source: Letterboxd
Info: IMDb