The Living Daylights

Concluding the brief but fondly remembered (by me) 80s pop-rock era of Bondkino, The Living Daylights is also the first outing of Timothy Dalton in the role. Universally forgotten and ignored by pop culture bloggers and general audiences, Dalton was notable for being Craig before Craig, except better in literally every way. His Bond is terse, serious, brooding, edgy and grimdark. Crucially however no one else is, including old friends like Q, amiable villain Brad (this is, in fact, his name), and undisputed series Best Girl Kara the cellist, who is a qt3.14 and uniquely marriage material among Bond thots.

PROTECT

The plot involves a defecting Russian general, because it is the Cold War once more, except this time with an appropriately nervy sense of suspicion and mistrust, like it's actually the Cold War and not the friendly sport it's mostly been portrayed as heretofore. There's even an hilariously cringily poorly aged subplot in which Bond teams up with the Mujaheddin to fight the bad old Russkies, which either makes him Rambo 3 or a contemporary Democrat.

Well boys, we found it: the most horrifically badly aged joke of all time.

The action in the Dalton outings is extremely good and real-feeling, but still makes use of fun gadgets such as a car that slices other cars in half with lasers. You know, something fun, instead of having a nerd in glasses lecture us about how gadgets are silly and not grimdark enough, like in the Cr**g joints. There's also tits for, I believe, the first time ever in a Bondkino, which seems odd somehow but that's how it is.

Hilariously, Bond ripped off her robe to create a Bugs Bunny tier distraction for the guy he's knocking out in the corner.

Though overshadowed by 1996's Goldeneye and, sadly, 2005's Casino Royale, The Living Daylights was a nice, refreshing change of pace in its day, and in the Berenstein timeline where 9/11 never happened and there is no Jihad, it's probably fondly remembered and viewed in flying cars on autopilot to this day.