Project Bond: Licence To Kill

James Bond is back, and this time, it’s personal. Like last time, and some of the other times, but a bit more so. His good friend and CIA ally, Felix Leiter, has been badly maimed (by a shark, of course), and his wife of a few days murdered. Bond swears revenge on Sanchez, the drug lord responsible (and his henchpersons, including a young and almost unrecognisable Benicio del Toro), even if this comes at the expense of his job, which it does, obviously. He gets even madder when Leiter’s pal Sharkey is killed by a shark, which he should really have seen coming.

M has flown out to berate him in the jungle, because phones haven’t been invented yet, and tells him to forget about Sanchez and get back to whatever he was supposed to be doing. Bond resigns, and M revokes his licence to kill (nudge nudge) and demands his weapon (gun). Bond sticks the nut in him and runs off with his weapon (gun), determined to avenge his friends. This doesn’t stop Q helping him out later with some gadgets and exasperated sass, for some reason.

Bond is getting on well with two ladies, Pam Bouvier and Loupe Lamora (or ‘Sane Today,’ as I call her), from opposite sides, for strictly professional reasons, of course. This inevitably blows up in his pointy face when one sees him with the other, but he eventually smoothes things over and is able to play Sanchez and the CIA against each other to his own ends.

So Sanchez thinks Bond is brand new, and Bouvier thinks he is on her side, which he essentially is, but he wants to kill Sanchez, not lock him up. Meanwhile, Sanchez is distracted by trying to sell hunners of cocaine to some “Orientals,” and doesn’t pay enough attention to Bond. Only Benicio del Toro suspects something, and he gets his when he is chewed up by a big shredder.

There follows a very impressive chase scene with a lot of fire and petrol, which reminded me of the good bit in Die Hard 2: Die Harder, although Licence To Kill came first. Sanchez finally corners Bond, having realised that they’re not exactly best pals after all, and it all looks grim for our hero, until he pulls The Ol’ Switcheroo and burns Sanchez to a wee crisp. It’s quite something.

I didn’t enjoy this one as much as Dalton’s previous outing, but it was still pretty good, and I’m going to miss him when he’s gone, which is now.