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Comments
Brozza's performance is all over the place in DAD. Yes the material is awful, but so is his acting. Saw the first half the other day and I really don't get why people rave about the PTS or Cuba scenes. He looks like a Florida pensioner on holiday. Great scene when he's letching over Jinx through binoculars...
Had EON moulded Brosnan more into the kind of man he is in The Fourth Protocol, he could have stayed on for seven films.
Martin Campbell did not like moody Bond at the time. But Pierce suits moody and truly pissed. In The Fourth Protocol his moments where he is alone are fascinating. Like when he has washed his hair and is drinking whilst he is watching tv.
I think he looks fine. Why is his acting bad in the PTS or the Cuba scenes (ok I admit he went a bit overboard with the Jinx stuff but during his scenes with Raoul I thought he worked well).
I liked his "I don't care" attitude in the film.
Pierce Dalton
Timothy Brosnan
Yes, but the film is such a piece of trash. Style over substance. He had few moments where we see his real talents as an actor. But it could not have been a worse exit for him from the series.
The wit of Bond is tacky. Brosnan is too laid back in most the movie. I do not see any stretching of himself. The scene where he meets Jinx is sh*te and hardly what you call good acting.
In the Connery days those scenes were powerful. Even his scene in the PTS of DAF where he strangles a woman with a bra though not PC is a tour de force of how Connery could command the situation in seconds.
Connery is laid back but with an intensity that is out there.
I liked his scene with M:
"Abandoned station...for abandoned agents. Your calling card!"
It did brilliantly in Europe. In fact regarding your point that with the things going on in the film here is an interesting observation.
LTK at the time scored very highly with test audiences in the USA. It got very favourable responses and I can only assume that the studio thought the film would be fine and did rested on their laurels.
So they liked the film before release.
With Bond, you need to hammer hard with the advertising. Nothing less will do.
Brosnan's era should have been outstanding and not serviceable. The money spent and support means it is a black mark against the don't dare mess with the formula attitude.
Old Bond was risky and pushed the boundaries.
Lazenby too had exceptional scenes.
If you cut the promotional budget and assume just fans will see it then Box Office will come short. You need to gain new audience with each film.
Bond in the late 80's was under promoted. The attitude of the studio was exactly what your above statement says. It was complacent.
In even Connery's day they would put up huge billboards despite the fact he was a huge success. Even in those circumstances, marketing was not underestimated.
Hmm...good point. I get the feeling TLD was fairly well promoted across the world though and still, according to BO Mojo sadly didn't make it to the top 10 that year in the US (although in fairness it still did pretty well). I recall PB saying - after the deal with Bond fell through - that he saw big billboards of Tim when driving along the road.
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1987&p=.htm
LTK seemed to be the deal breaker. I remember having to scroll down to find it in the 1989 box office figures - at #36. Shame that a Bond movie was that low. Even if marketing was poor 36 is just sad.
http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1989&p=.htm
I feel I should point out I enjoyed License To Kill, but that doesn't mean I don't think there are some parts of the movie where I find my eyes rolling up and don't think what they were attempting worked. The scene with Bond avoiding the LAW rocket in the semi jumpes to mind.
I know of no amount of advertising that would have changed that reaction.
LTK did great in Europe and in the UK it did very well even with the 15 certificate.
Releasing LTK at the same time as Batman which at the time was the biggest movie ever was idiotic of the studio and shows how they really did not think through.
No Bond film after LTK would ever be released in the summer. The industry had changed but the studio thought they were in the Octopussy days.
I mean when Roger had a Bond film, it would always be released when it had no real competition. It was the main thing at the cinema.
What competition did FYEO or Octopussy have? Hardly any compared to the late 80's market. Cubby even said in his book that it was harder to compete than before at the time of LTK and then on top of that a weak advertising campaign with money saving attitude.
Yes but look what a turkey DAD was and people still went to see it in greater numbers. The promotion sold the film. And it was a heavy campaign. I am talking only about getting people to see the film before they see those scenes.
The advertising got people to see it, and we all know that they were in for a shock.
Yes, LTK has some bad scenes which were rushed because John Glen was pushed for time and under immense pressure.
LTK could have made way more money in the USA with a heavy and hard push of advertising.
But LTK's truck action is not what makes the film a great one for me. It is amazing but the story is the star and so is Bond's vendetta.
1. Dalton is just too serious in this film.
2. The production values are really poor and it looks like a made for TV film. It might not sound a lot but it just lacks that wow factor.
3. The score is such a far cry from John Barry and because the plot and characterisation is so far from the norm we really need something familiar to hang onto. Hence how when Q shows up I've heard that loads of audicences cheered.
Where CR treads a similar serious path it does so with panache. The Astons, the suits the locations its all there and is beautifully shot. It feels like a Bond film. LTKs biggest problem is it lacks all sense of being a Bond film.
Perhaps there's an element of truth to this.
I'd apply the last statement to SF too.
Very much agreed!
LTK's advertising barely got people into theatres which is why it hauled a measly $25 million in the USA.
It's a no brainer, but the studio messed up. DAD being poor did not matter. Ironically it did more business than the previous three. I went to see it based on an impressive advertising and thinking I was in for a masterpiece. Bond being captured made me think we were in for a serious study of the character and a development for the series.
DAD is the bottom of the barrel for the series yet got a warmer public reception at the box office. But it came at the expense of the goodwill of Bond fans and a break of trust with the franchise.
The hype won the day for DAD at the expense of the series survival.
Yes Dalton is serious but it is contextual to the story. It does not look like a tv movie but at best an Americanised movie.
Yes, the score is not a John Barry one. And neither is TSWLM which is poor in my opinion and tacky sounding apart from the PTS. Yet the film is highly ranked anyway.
In fact LTK does look like an 80's Bond film. I never thought for a second it is not Bond.
The problem is @Bain123 is that we sometimes take a critics word as a fact. Yesterday you said LTK looks like Miami Vice but you also admitted you never saw Miami Vice. That underlines my points of how sometimes we use others opinions to form our argument against.
So sometimes opinions I hear about LTK are taken from other peoples assessments.
I pay no attention to critics any more than those who still to this day think Craig is not right for Bond. And they also put in strong arguments why they think so.
At the end of the day Bond is subjective. If I was to follow popular opinion, then I would not watch TMWTGG. It is seen as a poor entry yet has some wonderful moments to be discovered.
LTK had a lot of work put in and let's take it for what it wanted to do, which is show a darker side of Bond at a time when people still were so used to the Roger Moore style.
The film was ahead of it's time.
At the time of DAD most lapped it up like a kitten and were smitten with the 40th anniversary bug. But the film got the real knife in the back with the release of CR.
No one I knew said a bad word about DAD. It was liked for it's homages a lot.
Only then with CR, did many see the difference of how good Bond can be.
I saw DAD three times at the cinema despite not liking it on first viewing. It still is a toilet of a film. My going three times was not a reflection of it's quality. I thought maybe it is me and not the film. I thought I needed to get used to the style change.
The film has a grubby feel all round. I actually think I prefer OP (a film that seems to be mangled a lot too) overall. True it has its silly moments but its got a sense of espionage and style to it that is lacking in Kill.
Kill has got some strong points though - namely Robert Davi who is superb.
DAD is much worse though - I admit that.
There were a lot of technical issues I thought hindered License To Kill; Dalton's performance wasn't one of them. I think he's one of the stand-outs of the movie.
I don't know what it is but I just feel a bit...meh about him.
I still feel he has a very "TV/stage" feel about him.