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Dom Robinson reviews
Special EditionDistributed by
MGM
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 16193 DVD
- Running time: 125 minutes
- Year: 1987
- Pressing: 2001
- Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 32 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: 11 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- 16:9-enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: No
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Featurette: Inside The Living Daylights, Featurette: Ian Fleming – 007 Creator,Music Video (and making of), Deleted Scene, Trailers, Audio Commentary.
Director:
- John Glen
(Aces: Iron Eagle III, Checkered Flag, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, For Your Eyes Only, Licence to Kill, The Living Daylights,Octopussy, The Point Men, Space Precinct (TV), A View to A Kill)
Producers:
- Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson
Screenplay:
- Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson
Music:
- John Barry
Cast:
- James Bond: Timothy Dalton
Kara Milovy: Maryam D’Abo
General Georgi Koskov: Jeroen Krabbé
Brad Whittaker: Joe Don Baker
General Leonid Pushkin: John Rhys-Davies
Kamran Shah: Art Malik
Necros: Andreas Wisniewski
Saunders: Thomas Wheatley
Q: Desmond Llewelyn
M: Robert Brown
A 00-section training exercise that goes badly wrongis how Timothy Dalton makes his debut as James Bond, in which he made tracksfor the London 007 set the very next day after completing Brenda Starr.
Bond helps General Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé) defect to the West, despitethe attempted interventions of blonde-cellist-cum-rookie-sniper Kara Milovy (Maryam D’Abo,sister of The Wonder Years‘ Olivia). In return for the British Government’shelp, Koskov exposes the plan of his KGB superior, General Leonid Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies),to assassinate all of Britain and America’s spies including Bond. However, one of the KGB’sbest, Necros (Andreas Wisniewski) has other ideas and captures Koskov which means thatBond will have to travel across land, sea and air to resolve the situation.
Joe Don Baker also turns up as arms dealer Brad Whittaker, although he made appearancesin later, Brosnan, Bond films as CIA agent Jack Wade. In the era ofsafe sex and AIDS awareness, Bond only has one main squeeze this time round.
Dalton is okay as a less jokey and a more angered and determined Bond,but there’s something that doesn’t quite sit right with him in the lead andas it turned out, he was to have only one more outing in the role inLicence To Kill.
There’s the occasional print fleck early on, but I saw no problems to followamongst the glorious 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen picture so you can beassured there’s nothing to worry about.The average bitrate is a middle-of-the-road 4.69Mb/s, briefly peaking over 7Mb/s.
Sound FX aplenty beginning with a lovely, resounding bang as Bond’s openinggunfire travels to the rear speakers, along with scores of opportunities toimpress as the film progresses.
Extras : Chapters :The usual 32 chapters for an MGM, which is an excellent amount. If only some other DVDcompanies could take a lesson from this one. Languages & Subtitles :English is the only language on the disc – in Dolby Digital 5.1 – and there are subtitlesin 11 languages: English (and hard of hearing), Dutch, Swedish, Finnish,Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, Hebrew and Turkish. And there’s more… :There’s not as many extras this time round as with some of the earlierdiscs in the series.
- Featurette: Inside The Living Daylights (34 mins): Anotherdocumentary narrated by Patrick Macnee, with chat from manyof the usual suspects we’ve seen during this DVD series, including a lookat the screentests for who would play Bond in this film since Moore retiredafterA View To A Kill.Those who tested for the role at the time included Sam Neill, PierceBrosnan, the latter who wanted to do it at the time but wascontractually-obliged to the TV show Remington Steele, so, of course,it went to Timothy Dalton.
- Featurette: Ian Fleming – 007 Creator (43 mins): A look at the genius behind the action hero, again narrated by PatrickMacnee and with interviews from all and sundry.
- Music Video (4½ mins): A-Ha‘s single with thesame title as the film and this was the first time a non-UK singer or grouphad been chosen to perform for a Bond film.
- The Making of the Music Video (4 mins): A look behind the scenesat the A-Ha video with comments from the band and John Barry.
- Deleted Scene (1½ min): The Magic Carpet Ride, a scenewhich should have been left in as it features some quite impressive stunts.This extra is in 2.35:1 but non-anamorphic.
- Three Trailers (4½ mins): All around the same length, theRelease Trailer and North American teaser are in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, whilethe UK Teaser is in 16:9 and non-anamorphic.
- Audio Commentary: from director John Glen and membersof the cast and crew.
Some of the content, particularly the TV spots, isn’t exactly first-ratein terms of picture quality and sound, but it adds to the nostalgic qualityand all the interviews are clear enough.
The animated and scored main menu, plus similar treatment given to the swipesbetween menus, is as rich and colourful as we’ve come to expect from thisseries.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.