This may sound trivial, but the movie is ruined (for me) by the TV’ish photography and the pastel costume choices.
I know, the latter is a pretty lame reason and i’m hardly a sartorial guru myself! But there’s something too pop-culture about the look of both the movie and the clothes. It’s a victim of it’s time - being set in Miami Eon obviously felt the need to fall into line with the fashions of the then trend setting Miami Vice.
Of course Bond always reflects it’s times, but there’s something far too obvious - too desperate to fit in - about the proliferation of ‘Vice’ in this movie.
Perhaps what i hate is that this look in no way suits Dalton; Moore or even Brossa could’ve gotten away with it, but Dalton’s classical Byronic look and moreover his serious, darker portrayal of Bond is not someone who dons baggy, or pastel suits because they’re trendy.
I know, i can’t believe i’m saying this - that i could care less about wardrobe, but i’m trying to figure out what it is about LTK that bugs me and frankly, however pedantic, i think this is it - the aesthetics.
Surely Dalton’s more Fleming’esque Bond should’ve engaged the literary figure’s snobbery and turned his nose up at the prospect of such attire (just as Brossa did when he saw the Hawaiian shirt that Wade was wearing in TND).
Oh why wasn’t there a scene in which Dalton was offered a pastel number, but declined, opting for blue sea-cotton instead?
Yep, this would seem a paper thin reason to dislike a Bond movie - and it is - but there it is…
As i said, the photography is also incredibly flat and uninspired (as was AVTAK). Now if Deakins had been around to shoot LTK maybe i could forgive ‘Baggy-Bond’ in his Sonny Crocket jacket trying to look ever so trendy as he fled M’s security sniper through the bushes.
A shame, because most other aspects of the movie are a vast improvement on TLD: A great villain, great henchman, plausible, yet thrilling plot. Best of all he was a rogue Bond, allowing Dalton to undo the damage he’d done in TLD in which he’d made Bond a politically correct, a-sexual softy; again, a victim of it’s times circa late '80s and the dawn of ‘PC’.
Why on earth Dalton and Eon thought it necessary or plausible that a government assassin would give a s**t about the objectification of the opposite sex is beyond me; these are important issues for the real world, not Bond’s world!
Sure there’s no single scene in which Dalton espouses such concerns, but it was intentionally inferred in TLD’s lack of sex and espoused by Dalton post casting that Bond should not sleep around (at least that’s how i remember it).
If they felt the need to be responsible filmmakers because Aids was hitting the headlines for the first time it would’ve been far more responsible, plausible and most importantly entertaining if Q had simply given Bond a pack of condoms…
INT. Q’s TESTING LAB, UNIVERSAL EXPORTS - DAY
Q hands Bond a 3 pack of condoms. Bond holds the pack delicately, examining it, incredulous in his assumtion that it must have a hidden Q-funtion…
Bond: “What do they do?”
Q: “Keep you alive, 007”
Bond: “How?”
Q: “You put one on before infiltration.”