After capturing the notorious drug lord Franz Sanchez, Bond's close friend and former CIA agent Felix Leiter is left for dead and his wife is murdered. Bond goes rogue and seeks vengeance on those responsible, as he infiltrates Sanchez's organization from the inside.
The Bond women are pallid mannequins, and so is the misused Dalton -- a moving target in a Savile Row suit. For every plausible reason, he looks as bored in his second Bond film as Sean Connery did in his sixth.
– Richard Corliss,
TIME Magazine,
13 Oct 2008
fresh:
With Dalton straightening out Bond for the second time, Licence to Kill continues the salvage operation begun in The Living Daylights and rescues a series that was in danger of shooting itself in the foot. With a Walther PPK, of course.
– Desmond Ryan,
Philadelphia Inquirer,
20 May 2014
fresh:
Dalton revives the cool, ironic detachment of the Connery years, but he also allows a touch of obsession to show through Bond`s surface aplomb.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Tribune,
20 May 2014
rotten:
If the series is ever going to return to its Connery-era glory, it definitely needs some new writers, ones who know how to streamline a story and keep the dialogue tight.
– Jay Boyar,
Orlando Sentinel,
20 May 2014
fresh:
Every once in a while, [the Bond series] pulls in its stomach, pops the gun from its cummerbund, arches its eyebrow and gets off another bull's-eye. The newest, Licence to Kill, is probably one of the five or six best of Bond.