License to Kill - where a license isn't really necessary

License to Kill (1989) is an amazing movie in that it exists. Timothy Dalton’s second and last turn as James Bond, the film opens with the interruption of the wedding for Felix, Bond’s CIA buddy. The pair arrive late to the wedding having captured – midair – a drug lord (Franz Sanchez, played by Robert Davi) who, naturally, breaks out, tortures Felix with a shark and kills his new bride just hours after the ceremony. This isn’t your father’s Bond. The usually calm 007 spends the movie vengefully tracking down those responsible and, even with his license revoked, kills liberally throughout.

License to Kill combines many of the best parts of James Bond with the 1980s and does so much more successfully than the last two Roger Moore films, Octopussy and A View to a Kill. Those fantastic Bond motifs include: needlessly elaborate villainous plots (here: drug deals involving televangelist Professor Joe Butcher), cheesy fake blood, sharks as weapons, a villain named Killifer, a girl working for the villain whom Bond turns, and an impossibly expansive, secret villain compound where Bond is initially a guest but is soon placed into overly-complicated scenarios to escape from (spoiler: he escapes).

The film is also darker than anything Sean Connery or Roger Moore did, certainly influenced by other 80s action movies that trafficked in moody, brooding heroes and cruel, maniacal antagonists. Bond even has a male sidekick for once when one of Felix’s CIA buddies insists on helping him track down the drug kingpin. Dalton uses fewer puns and one-liners than previous Bonds, but really, was he going to say “He really put his best foot forward!” after his friend loses a leg to a shark?

The performances are precisely what you’d expect from a Bond movie. Dalton is confident in the role, even if he lacks some of the charm that Connery originally brought to the character. Davi and Benicio Del Toro are manic, deranged, and menacing as the drug lords, and the Bond girls, Pam Bouvier and Lupe Lamora, make for strong, gun-toting female companions, even if their characters are a little underdeveloped. (Shocking for a Bond movie, I know.)

License to Kill is a fun movie, but by no means a great movie. While it’s darker than all other Bond movies (before the Daniel Craig trilogy, at least), the film lacks any real nuance and seems to relish finding horrible, gruesome ways for people to die for no reason other than shock value. The action scenes are crazy, of course, and there’s plenty of gunplay and explosions to keep everyone happy. The plot, while more comprehensible than some silly Bond plots before it, still relies on villains doing stupid things and being unable to just shoot Bond in the head when given the chance. But if you went to a Bond movie in 1989 expecting something else, you clearly hadn’t seen the previous 15 movies.

For some reason, the film killed the Bond franchise for six years and marked the end of Dalton’s brief, two-movie run as 007. Goofy and over-the-top at times, License to Kill is still a good James Bond movie, and Dalton made for a good, if unique, James Bond.

License to Kill: 4 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs

Extra abs

-       There are actually black people in this movie who aren’t waiters or bellhops, another welcome departure from previous Bond movies.

-       Bond does it all in this one: he flies, he drives, he runs, he swims, he kills, he womanizes, and he wins.

-       Sanchez learns that one of his cronies has been stealing from him. Instead of shooting him, he throws him in one of his ships decompression chambers, turns up the pressure, then cuts the vent. The guy’s head expands and explodes. Science!

-       There are a few good one-liners. Bond, after his license is revoked and asked to turn in his pistol: “A farewell to arms, then.” Even his jokes are based on melancholy, bleak 20^th-century literature.

-       Other possible one-liners for Felix losing a leg:

o   “He always wanted to take a bite out of crime.”

o   “He was never afraid to go out on a limb.”

o   “Have any legs? Go fish.”

-       This was the last movie in which Desmond Llewelyn played Q. I’m sure he’s building exploding watches for Jesus in Heaven as we speak.

Teen Wolf - where howling at the moon is optional

Teen Wolf is the story of Peter Parker becoming Spider-Man without actually using his powers for good. In essence, it’s the Wolf’s origin story, only the hero ultimately comes to realize that his superpowers aren’t truly necessary for him to succeed in his quest: winning a high school basketball game. This is a superhero who doesn’t bother thinking too big, who enjoys belittling his friends and teammates, and who doesn’t want anonymity because if you can’t use your powers to make yourself more popular, what’s the point

Approaching the story as a failed superhero movie, one finds it hard to root for Scott Howard. Blessed with these skills, he parties, steals someone’s girlfriend, insults his friends, strings Boof along, and remains friends with Stiles, without a doubt one of the worst human beings ever conceived of.

And what are the rules for werewolves in this universe? He turns into a wolf at first when he’s mad or horny, but after his first basketball game, when he’s accepted by everyone immediately, he spends most of his time as the Wolf and changes at will. He has super hearing and smell, but also can jump five feet in the air and suddenly becomes a straight-A student without studying. 

That’s not to say the movie is without its charms. Michael J. Fox is as wonderful as always and really has fun in the manic role of Scott Howard, nerd, and Scott Howard, Teen Wolf. Michael Cera does a great awkward Michael J. Fox impression, but he could never play the confident, strutting Wolf. Fox is really one a kind. Mark Arnold also plays a wonderful 80s movie villain in Mick, the rival high school’s star basketball player. "Stick with your own kind, you freak!"

We've seen much of this story before. The nerd undergoes a drastic change, becomes popular, dates the most popular girl in school, alienates his best friends as fame goes to his head, realizes his mistakes at the last possible moment, kisses his female friend who’s been there the whole time, and finds the happy medium between popularity and his old life. It's really no surprise when, in the big game, Scott shows up sans wolf and hits the game-winning free throws with no time to go. He's grown up and won both the game and the girl.

So maybe it's not so much an origin story but a coming of age story. One for the beast in all of us.

Teen Wolf: 3 of Patrick Swayze’s 6 abs

Extra abs

• The basketball coach is terrific in how little he cares about either the game or his players. “There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours of sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never go near a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.”
• “With a great power comes a greater responsibility,” Scott's father (also a werewolf) tells his son. It’s almost exactly the lesson Spider-Man learns over and over. 
• That responsibility, apparently, includes visiting his son's school and terrifying the principal into peeing his pants in the hallway.
• As much as I love Jason Bateman, I will NOT be reviewing Teen Wolf 2.