James Bond Movie Review: **** License to Kill (1989)

 This the second Bond movie with Timothy Dalton as the lead character.  This movie is uch different than the other Bond movies.  In this movie, M (Robert Brown) actually strips Bond of his license to kill as he wants to pursue personal revenge against a drug dealer who has killed his CIA friend's wife and left his friend chewed by a shark and missing a leg.  The drug dealer, Franz Sanchez (Robert Davi) has big plans to make lots of money by combining drug dealing with other dealers, and supplying them cheaper drugs delivered in large trucks.  Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) helps Bond, as does Q (Desmond Llewelyn).  Miss Moneypenny (Caroline Bliss) is also concerned about Bond as he is off grid.  Bond also turns Sanchez' girlfriend, Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) into an ally is she is tired of being abused.  When Bond comes down, with the help of Bouvier, he comes down very hard.  The movie starts with Sanchez being captur4ed as Bond hooks a cable to his airplane and he is hauled to justice by a helicopter.  Someone takes his $2 million bribe and he escapes.  The movie ends with a big semi truck chase and fight with lots of explosions as the drug business goes up in flames.  Great fun.  Bond makes it to the end of the movie with two women, and he has to pick.

James Bond Movie Review: **** The Living Daylights (1987)

 This movie has the same Bond theme but with a different actor portraying James Bond (Timothy Dalton).  There really does seem to be some chemistry with his co-star, Maryam d'Abo portraying Kara Milovy who is a cello player.  Q is the same actor, while Moneypenny (Caroline Bliss is new.  M (Robert Brown) is played by the same actor as the previous movie.  Of course then there are the villains, who are trying to make money selling arms, heroin and diamonds.  Jeroen Krabbé plays Koskov who plays a defecting KGB agent but in reality is defecting to this criminal organization,  Joe Don Baker portrays the arms dealer Brad Whitaker.  Andreas Wisniewski plays Necros, the killer for this organization.  With the KGB is John Rhys-Davies as General Pushkin.  And an Afghani leader is Kamran Shah played by Art Malik.  

Bond is trying to disrupt the network.  Most of the good action is in Afghanistan, during the time when the Russians were fighting there.  There is a chase of a taxing plane, and then the plane taking off and a fight with the back cargo hold of the plane.  Bond and Necros actually go out of the plane holding to nets and fighting with knives.  finally Necros is holding to Bond's boot, which Cond cuts away and Necros gets the boot as he falls out of the plane.

Very good Bond Movie and introducing Tim Dalton as James Bond.

Movie Review: ***^The Rocketeer

I remember really enjoying this movie, and Natalia and Mark really enjoying it when they were little.  However in watching it again, I wasn't as impressed.  This is a hero vs Nazi spy movie, and on that level it works.  However it lacks some of the punch and story line some subsequent movies have.  Cliff (Billy Campbell) is a test pilot, who dreams of participating in air races.  His dream goes south when his prototype plane crashes after he is shot by a fleeing criminal.  The criminal is also caught, but not before hiding his bounty in a plane in the hangar.  Turns out he had stolen a new people propelling rocket.  He and his friend, mentor, Peevy (Alan Arkin) test the prototype, and decide to use it.  This only gets them into trouble.  First the criminals who want it, and the Nazi spy, Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton) who is paying them to steal it.  Then also the federals who want to recover it.  You add to the mix Cliff's pretty girlfriend, Jenny (Jennifer Connelly) and you have the makings of a pretty fun jaunt.  It is kidnapping the girl that turns things in the Nazi spy's favor, but when they criminals discover who they are working for, things change.  This movie even adds a German dirigible, which crashes into the Hollywood sign and destroys the "land" ending.  This movie is fun, but just lacks that extra oomph.