The Living Daylights (1987)

Bond #15 is Timothy Dalton's first appearance in the role. Thought there is not a hard break here per say, The Living Daylights is where I would reset the chronology and divide the Connery/Lazenby/Moore Bond's from the Dalton (and presumably Brosnan) one's. Timothy Dalton is 16 years younger then Connery and 19 younger then Moore, so he's of a different generation and not buyable as a continuation of the previous continuity. Even age difference aside Dalton's Bond is of a different character then his predecessors, and of a more serious disposition, as is the tone of the film. A late cold war story of yet another rouge Soviet (played by Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé'), this one colluding with an American arms dealer played by Joe Don Baker, who is this films biggest throw back to the camp quality of Roger Moore's Bond films. The rest of the film is fairly serious though, for a Bond film, and refreshing for being so. Exotic locations include Gibraltar, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Tangier and Afghanistan, this is a very late 80's topical Bond. Maryam d'Abo is a Bond girl, and the theme song is by A-ha, so now I know two A-ha songs. I really liked the sequence at the end with Dalton and Andreas Wisniewski fighting on rope net dangling from the back of a moving plane. John Rhys-Davies plays a Russian general. ***1/2 for reinventing itself.