Carey Lowell in Licence to Kill (1989)

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License to Kill has Timothy Dalton in his second appearance as Bond, and he did a decidedly great job.

Desmond Llewelyn as "Q" had his largest part ever, and Robert Brown and Caroline Bliss made their last appearances as M and Moneypenny. The story is not typical Bond. James attends Felix Lieter's wedding. When a drug kingpin kills the bride, and feeds one of Felix's legs to a shark, Bond swears revenge. M visits and demands that he go to Istanbul for his next assignment, and Bonds quits. M demands his gun and says he is no longer licensed to kill, but does not try very hard to prevent him from escaping.

Sometime later, Q turns up "on holiday" to see if he can be any help, and Bond is told at the end that M has a job offer for him. My read was that M couldn't approve the activity, but was on Bond's side.

He partners with a CIA operative, Carey Lowell who is in pursuit of Robert Davi. He also takes the time to charm Davi's girlfriend, Talisa Soto. Here we have a determined Bond with much less humor who relentlessly chases Davi.

There is a wonderful cameo appearance of Wayne Newton as a televangelist who actually is a front for the drug trade. The action highlight is a downhill chase with gasoline tanker trucks.

Critics Vote: The major critics agreed. (Leonard Maltin 3, Berardinelli 3, Roger Ebert 3 out of 12),

IMDB Summary: Way too low at 6.1 out of 10

Box Office: Production cost was $40m, it only brought in $156.2m.

Written by: Tuna …courtesy of Scoopy.net