This is no doubt part of the plan, announced before Dalton's first Bond picture, to de-emphasize the character's promiscuous sex life. Both women are as beautiful as the historical Bond standard, but more modern - more competent, intelligent and capable, and not simply sex objects. He is aided in his campaign by the beautiful Pam Bouvier ( Carey Lowell, introduced as "Miss Kennedy, my executive secretary"), and saved more than once by Sanchez' beautiful mistress, Lupe Lamora ( Talisa Soto). After Bond's friend, Felix Leiter, is mistreated by the bad guys, 007 begins a savage vendetta against Sanchez, which involves elaborate and violent stunt sequences in the air, on land, and underwater. His operation uses an underwater shark-nabbing company as its cover, and keeps a few sharks on hand so they can dine on federal agents. Like all Bond villains, Sanchez has unlimited resources and a beautiful mistress. But then the action switches to the recognizable modern world in and around Key West, Fla., where the British agent finds himself involved in an operation to capture Sanchez and cut his pipeline of cocaine. ![]() The film begins with a sensationally unbelievable stunt sequence (Bond and friend lasso a plane, then parachute to a wedding ceremony). There are still, of course, the obligatory scenes. In "Licence to Kill," however, the use of a drug kingpin named Sanchez ( Robert Davi) and his henchmen ( Anthony Zerbe, Frank McRae) is apparently part of an attempt to update the whole series and make it feel more contemporary. Sure, they die in the end, but they have a lot of fun in the meantime. I've grown uneasy lately about the fashion of portraying drug smugglers in glamorous lifestyles they're viewed with some of the same glamor as gangsters were, in films of the 1930s. The third is that the villain has fairly modest aims, for a change he doesn't want to rule the world, he only wants to be a cocaine billionaire. ![]() The second is that the tempo has been picked up, possibly in response to the escalating pace of the Rambo and Indiana Jones movies. One is that the Bond character, as played now for the second time by Timothy Dalton, has become less of a British icon and more of an international action hero. Within this framework of tradition, "Licence to Kill" nevertheless manages to spring some interesting surprises. There are few surprises, and the changes are evolutionary, so that the latest Bond picture is recognizable as a successor to the first, "Dr. Connoisseurs evaluate the elements in a Bond picture as if they were movements in a symphony, or courses in a meal.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |