The Living Daylights

Essential, and the most underrated film in the series. Timothy Dalton's two films were out of step with what audiences wanted in 1987 and read now as the obvious bridge to Casino Royale nineteen years later.

The difference is in the first ten minutes. Dalton's Bond is ordered to shoot a sniper and deliberately misses, because he can see she is an amateur, and then says plainly that if his superior does not like it he can have the assignment. He is a man doing an unpleasant job competently and without pleasure, which is much closer to Fleming than anything since the 1960s.

The plot is a defection that is not what it appears, running through Vienna, Tangier and Afghanistan, with arms dealing and a Soviet general playing both sides. It was written while Moore was still expected to return, which is why a few sequences are lighter than the lead, and the Aston Martin's gadgets are the last of the old style.

Maryam d'Abo's Kara is a cellist rather than an agent, and the film commits to a single love interest for the only time outside the Craig era. The cello-case sled down a snowy border crossing and the fight on a cargo net hanging from a plane are both excellent. Watch it.