Why don't people like Timothy Dalton as Bond?

License to Kill is one of my favorite bond flicks.

I love the villain in the movie. No frills or thrills, just a very GQ professional kingpin who's entire morals were also based around loyalty. Loyalty meant more to him than money or power.

Only Dalton as Bond could have made a good contrast to fight such a villain.

Dalton does suck and he doesn't look like the Bond type of guy, he ain't suave looking enough to play a good Bond. I do like The Living Daylights mostly because its a good story but not because of him.

I like Timothy Dalton's acting in License to Kill and Living Daylights, the latter also is a nice dark & gritty spy movie, iirc it was one of the last Bonds with old-style cold war elements. Not a typical Bond movie but worth watching anyway.

License to Kill has some great action scenes, I also like the meditation camp idea and the "dope factory".

Well, Dalton is no Connery but as other said he's probably closer to the real Bond than baby-face Brosnan. Moore was okay IMO, sometimes his gentleman-style stiffness was a problem though. Connery is my fave of the lot, I also prefer the old Bonds over the modern ones... I find Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, etc. quite confusing, continuity was much better in the old movies.

Great thread.

Imo Dalton is one of the best Bonds because of his portrayl of the character (which is similar to the original books). At the time his characterisation caught a lot of casual movie goers off gaurd because they were used to Moore's more light hearted approach.

Moore's stint will forever be tainted by Moonraker (just plain stupid) and View To A Kill (which had a lot of promise but isruined by one or two scenes that just make the film plain silly - i.e the fire engine chase - I cringe when that comes on and it's a totally unneccesary sequence). His best Bond performance, if you will, was For Your Eyes Only. For me The Spy Who Loved Me is the best Bond film and it's the only one that gets combination of action/humour/girls/Characterisation spot on.

Living Daylights is a superb film, although I always feel a little let down by the abrupt ending - the showdown with Whittaker could have been a lot better.

Licence To Kill is brilliant. The petrol tanker chase at the end hasto be the best chase sequnce yet in a Bond film. Sure the plot eschews the usual mix of exotic locales for the Florida Keys and Mexico but I don't think that detracts from the film's overall quality. I think its probably the closest film to the tone of the books, although Casino Royale does a good job from what I remember... really need to see it again.

Goldeneye is rubbish - it's silly, campy and just too OTT, which is a shame because there are some good plot elements in there.

The only Brosnan film I liked was Tomorrow Never Dies. Yes, Jonathon Pryce's villian is a little too campy but overall I felt it didn't detract too much from the rest of the film.

Die Another Day was ok up until the fencing scene then was boring and The World Is Not Enough is just plain boring, period. Shame, because I thought Brosnan played Bond quite well - a good mix of Dalton & Moore's Bond's.

Anyway, just my 2 cents...

I also like the Bond flicks where the villain isn't some freak or after global domination. That concept was good for the early ones, but I feel got played out.

License to Kill didn't have a global domination style villain. Minus the over the top scenes here and there, the movie was very realistic.

This is off topic, but I find it amazing you can have a discussion about a series of so many films, with so many different main actors, and have a lot of people like EVERYONE of the main actors. Normally, with even a series of films so small as 3, a topic would degenerate into 1 or more of them sucking, and almost everyone in agreement.

It says a lot about the high quality of the James Bond films.

Tarma your right about the fire engine scene in "View To A Kill" but the movie still is good IMO.

Dalton could be a great villain. IMO, the villain should always be greater than the hero for a good story.

Neo Geo MVS said:

Tarma your right about the fire engine scene in "View To A Kill" but the movie still is good IMO.

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Don't get me wrong, i do think View To A Kill is a good movie, however it's scenes like the fire engine scene that stop it from being a great movie. Obviously the age difference between Bond and Stacey is asking a bit much of the viewer. That's not to say Moore couldn't play an ageing Bond however, they should have toned down the "romantic" elements of the plot.

That's my opinion on VTAK anyways.

Tarma said:

Don't get me wrong, i do think View To A Kill is a good movie, however it's scenes like the fire engine scene that stop it from being a great movie. Obviously the age difference between Bond and Stacey is asking a bit much of the viewer. That's not to say Moore couldn't play an ageing Bond however, they should have toned down the "romantic" elements of the plot.

That's my opinion on VTAK anyways.

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Your right Tarma about the age difference and romantic element, but damn I just looked up Tanya Roberts and I didn't know she was Donna's mom on That 70's Show. My god what age has done to a girl that used to look so beautiful

Don't get me wrong she has the body but the face went to hell. But everyone gets wriggles.

Neo Geo MVS said:

Your right Tarma about the age difference and romantic element, but damn I just looked up Tanya Roberts and I didn't know she was Donna's mom on That 70's Show. My god what age has done to a girl that used to look so beautiful

Don't get me wrong she has the body but the face went to hell. But everyone gets wriggles.

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Moore himself is often quoted as saying that he couldn't see people believing in Bond's relationship with Stacey because of the obvious age differences. Although not done deliberately in both Octopussy and VTAK, and to a lesser extent FYEO, Moore plays an older version of Bond really well. The problem lies with the romantic interests in those films, although Maude Adams as Octopussy is ideal for Moore's "age" of Bond because she is clearly a more mature female interest... or milf for the understanding of some of the members here.

Tarma said:

Moore himself is often quoted as saying that he couldn't see people believing in Bond's relationship with Stacey because of the obvious age differences. Although not done deliberately in both Octopussy and VTAK, and to a lesser extent FYEO, Moore plays an older version of Bond really well. The problem lies with the romantic interests in those films, although Maude Adams as Octopussy is ideal for Moore's "age" of Bond because she is clearly a more mature female interest... or milf for the understanding of some of the members here.

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+1 to Tarma for using the term "milf" in quite cerebral analysis.


I have to agree that The Living Daylights is better than License To Kill, and Dalton stands out in my mind as one of the most realistic Bonds. Although some Bond films gain "plot cred" (such as The Living Daylights and Tomorrow Never Dies, looks toward Rupert Murdoch.) it will be interesting to see how we all feel about Craig in ten years.


Quantum Of Solace - NOVEMBER!

Neo Geo MVS said:

Your right Tarma about the age difference and romantic element, but damn I just looked up Tanya Roberts and I didn't know she was Donna's mom on That 70's Show. My god what age has done to a girl that used to look so beautiful

Don't get me wrong she has the body but the face went to hell. But everyone gets wriggles.

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Tanya Roberts is pretty much naked in The Beastmaster. She sure was smokin hot.

That's one of the things I like about the Brosnan Bond movies, IMO those have the hottest girls of all the films. Isabella Scorupco, Sophie Marceau and Famke Jannsen is enough for me to base that on.

GunstarHero said:

That's one of the things I like about the Brosnan Bond movies, IMO those have the hottest girls of all the films.

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I don't think you can get any more subjective than that. I'll give you Sophie Marceau, but otherwise, I much prefer:


Jane Seymore


Eva Green


Carole Bouquet


Daniela Bianchi


Claudine Auger


Barbara Bach -- I admit she might be a little weird looking for some people, but I dig her.

It's just personal taste, but for me, any of those girls blow away the girls of the Brosnan Bonds (other than Marceau).

SouthtownKid said:

I don't think you can get any more subjective than that. I'll give you Sophie Marceau, but otherwise, I much prefer:

Jane Seymore

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Imagine if you married her, like in her prime. And that even 30 some years later you'd still want to bang the shit out of her. In Wedding Crashers she was the hottest woman.

God damn. The mold was broken on that woman.

This thread made me realize that I haven't seen that many Bond movies overall. I don't even know if I've seen half.

SouthtownKid said:

By your own admission, you're not a big Bond fan. Not trying to tell you what you should or shouldn't like; just saying that you're coming at it from a different perspective.

Like DangerousK was pointing out, a lot of casual viewers also write off the Lazenby movie, when actually, it's one of the better movies in the series. But you get people who are big fans of the movies and have maybe read the Flemming novels, and they usually give more credit to Lazenby and Dalton.

As for Tomorrow Never Dies, it's got one of the lamest plots, campiest villains (in a series of campy villains), the helicopter-chopping-up-the-ground gag is too unbelievable even for a Bond movie (worse even than the mack truck popping a wheelie in License to Kill), and Terri Hatcher in her brief role manages to drag the movie down nearly as much as Capshaw does Temple of Doom. IMO.

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I think the sad thing about On Her Majesty's Secret Service is that the main cast is quite phenomenal. I mean god almighty, we get BOTH Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas in their primes. They put in great performances that everyone likes to ignore.

The ending being what it is, it actually gave us a great look at what a James Bond film could be in terms of seriousness...too bad it only took them nearly 40 years to do so.

Anyone who rips on George Lazenby either has never seen his performance, or is just plain ignorant. He had such a thankless job because of the outcry over Connery not being in the film. He turns in a stellar performance and brings about a nice evolution in the Bond character on film...and he doesn't get enough credit for the job he did. I feel bad for him because it was a no win situation at the time.