The living daylights ultimate edition review

The contrast seems razor sharp, with high detail level and excellent shadow depth. Colors seem a little faded here and there, but usually appear natural and display no distortion or other errors.

I found minimal compression flaws also, which results in a superior transfer for this popular film. This disc includes a Dolby Digital 5. The surrounds come to life in the more action driven sequences, but some good subtle use is also evident at times.

Once again, John Barry has supplied a wonderful musical score and it sounds awesome here, using the surrounds to immersive ends. I also found no problems with the dialogue and softer effects, both of which come through in fine form.

As with the other discs in The James Bond Collection, this one comes complete with a nice selection of bonus materials. First up is Inside The Living Daylights, which is a thirty-six minute featurette that gives us an inside look at this movie. I do wish it was more in depth in the end, but I am glad it was placed here.

Christopher Lee is menacing enough and the supporting cast includes the amusing Clifton James and stalwart Soon-Tek Oh , both of whose work I always enjoy. The weakest part of the cast is Britt Ekland , tho she fills a bikini like few others.

Storywise, there's not much tension as Bond is hunting down a man we think is hunting him. The truth of the matter and its connection to some early dialogue isn't that interesting, really. Truly, the biggest stars of the film are the Asian locations and the sets; both the slanted headquarters and Scaramanga's funhouse are cool and there's some great miniature work for the power station's destruction.

Bonus features include a few different video bits about the spiral car jump , still an amazing stunt. I'm not a huge proponent of creators revising their work years later but I'm not sure why they didn't just erase the slide whistle sound from the car jump, especially since nobody says anything good about it in retrospect. The commentaries have lots of talk about how the production of this movie discoved the Phang Na area for the rest of the world and how it's all a huge tourist mess now.

There's also some good talk about the cast, with many saying that Herve Villechaize was quite the ladies' man when not working. Roger Moore has a commentary to himself, as well, and does a very informative job, making a repeat viewing go a lot easier than it should for this draggy film.

Come to think of it, he hardly draws his gun. Do you know how many goats you are worth? I got 9! Labels: goats. Diamonds Are Forever was the first weak James Bond film. There are certainly weaknesses in all of the films before it but this is the first that's weak overall, saved only by an excellent score from John Barry and lots of shots of Las Vegas in , almost making it a time capsule.

It already had this quality in the early 80s when I first saw it, as the film has numerous shots of open desert outside the casinos, something my parents made great note of as we visited Vegas a few times around that time. So what went wrong with this one? In the filmmaker's commentary, the screenwriter says it was the big car chase on the nighttime streets of Vegas happening in the middle of the film, which served as an early climax as it overshadowed the oil rig battle at the end.

While that certainly was well done, there are other problems that are more serious. First of all, casting as the main villain a guy with no f-ing neck who not only wasn't very menacing or even bald, like the previous Blofelds but appeared as a good guy just 4 years prior. Connery gave the part the absolute minimum it required and the female lead was poorly written and played by a lesser actor.

Maybe folks simply were tired of Bond as a whole. Certainly we took the series for granted, since no more than two years ever passed without a new flick. The break may have made us remember why we loved the franchise so much.

In any case, I think that if the people who avoided the Dalton Bonds took a look at them, they'd be pleasantly surprised.

Although I slightly prefer the even-grittier Licence to Kill , The Living Daylights is almost as solid and exciting a movie; it's a thoroughly terrific little piece.

As with many most? Bond films, the plot to Daylights can be fairly convoluted. However, it all comes together nicely; it may be confusing for a while, but the loose ends get tied together neatly and all make sense without too much extraneous effort from the filmmakers.

The story covers a lot of physical territory and does it logically and smoothly. Like Kill , Daylights works best due to its impressive action pieces. For years, Bond movies included fantastic stunts but ruined these with dopey attempts at humor. The two Daltons largely eliminated this aspect of the series, which makes the action scenes come across as much more exciting and visceral. Really, I think these two movies provide some of the best action of the Bonds; they really took that element to another level, and Dalton's tough physical presence makes them seem all the more convincing.

I remain undecided what I think of Dalton's portrayal of Bond, however, as I feel he often tried too hard to be "different". It seems like an overly-intellectualized performance. Except for the one-flop wonder sacrifice of George Lazenby in 's On Her Majesty's Secret Service , all the other Bonds - Sean Connery, Moore, and Pierce Brosnan - provide their own characterizations that seem to flow naturally from their own personalities.

Whether you think their work is good or bad, all of these actors appear pretty effortless in the role and never seem "forced". The same cannot be said for Dalton. I recall reading interviews with him at the time, and he always stressed how he was going to portray Bond as originally depicted in Ian Fleming's books. It's all well and good for him to strive for this form of authenticity, I suppose, but after 25 years of movies, Fleming's conception was largely irrelevant; the films had become the way the character was interpreted, novels be damned.

Since I have to read much of Fleming's works, I don't know how close Dalton got to his goal, but I think he seemed self-consciously "tough" at times, and this undermines his goals. For example, at one point he essentially tells "Q" that if he fired Bond, he'd be doing him a favor. Dalton spits this out with bitter, nasty swagger that just seems off in the film.

Dalton also tries to humanize Bond through showing mild but obvious fear and anxiety at times. This just doesn't work, as it feels like an intellectual decision and not an emotional one; Moore or Connery would convey small looks of concern, but Dalton's appearance feels overly emotive.

Don't get me wrong: Dalton gives us more "good" than "bad", and he seemed more natural in the role the second time around in I'm also all for grittier action in the Bonds, as I really don't like the silliness that marked so many of the Moore outings. However, old Tim needed to lighten up a little, and he has trouble with the more suave aspects of the role; his Bond comes across a too much of a thug at times. On one hand, she provides a more natural and real presence than the usual stiff Bond bimbos.

D'Abo's clearly a huge step up from sexy but talentless Tanya Roberts in View and she handles both the sensitive and the tough sides of her character nicely. Milovy is one of the few Bond women who gets to take charge at times, and D'Abo portrays this side of the equation believably.

However, I had some trouble with her just because she isn't a terribly gorgeous woman. To be sure, she's very pretty, but she seems rather bland and ordinary, at least compared to her predecessors. She lacks the exoticism typical of Bond women, and is actually less lovely than the new Moneypenny Caroline Bliss!

As with Dalton, D'Abo's positive sides outweigh the negative, but I don't feel as clearly high on her as I'd like. Actually, I believe it was the best since 's Thunderball. While some good movies appeared in the interim, I wouldn't consider any of them to approach greatness, whereas Daylights almost gets there. It doesn't quite get to the level of the best Connery flicks, but it makes for a tremendously exciting and compelling film in any case.

The Living Daylights is a true winner. Sharpness was slightly erratic. Most of the movie seemed distinctive and concise, but wide shots tended to be a smidgen ill-defined. Some of that stemmed from a bit of mild edge enhancement. No issues with shimmering or jagged edges occurred, though, and print flaws were absent.

Colors always remained solid and clear, with tones that looked accurate and rich. The best examples arrived during the carnival sequence in chapter 15, which showed off the varied and bright palette through cartoony colors.

Even in more subtle scenes, however, the hues stayed fine. Black levels largely appeared deep and dark with positive contrast. Shadow detail tended to be clear and smooth as well.

It also offered the original Dolby Surround 2. As with other Bond UEs, I thought the two 5.