[ljacone]

First off, Sentai, the word is spelled either "License" (American English) or "Licence" (British English), and in the case of the Bond film the title is Licence To Kill.

Now then. I will grant you that OHMSS is overlong. But that is a criticism of a lot of the Bond films from that era -- You Only Live Twice, the preceeding film, is especially bad about this as it slows to an absolute crawl in the second half. But to say the love story is idiotic is absolutely insane. Have you ever read Ian Fleming? The adaption of OHMSS is very close to the book and the special relationship between Bond and Teresa is much the same. "We Have All the Time In The World" is best left to its instrumental cues, but I love seeing the two of them together. Diana Rigg is gorgeous and Teresa is a unique Bond girl.

Remember also that this predates Columbo by a long time. So blaming Telly Savalas for playing Columbo later is pretty nonsensical.

Licence to Kill is not one of my favorites, but it's not that bad either. It's a little jumbled but the series was clearly at a creative low point. Regarding Dalton, there was a third film planned, Property Of A Lady, and depending on who you ask, preproduction may have started on it before the film was cancelled.

Licence To Kill unfortunately had the bad luck of being released in one of the nastiest summers of my childhood, competition wise: it was up against Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade, Batman, Back To The Future Part 2, Lethal Weapon 2, Ghostbusters 2, The Little Mermaid, and Honey I Shrunk The Kids. It never had a chance!

Honestly, as someone who has been a Bond novel and movie fan for 25+ years, I can say that the worst of the official Bond films are some of the modern dreck like Die Another Day and Quantum of Solace. I thought Casino Royale was fantastic and couldn't wait for QoS; what we got was just awful. The only good thing Die Another Day did was cause the change which brought us Casino Royale.

Of the classic series, You Only Live Twice is pretty poor. It's just draggy and boring, and The Spy Who Loved Me would do it a lot better a decade later. The Man With The Golden Gun is a personal favorite because I am a big fan of Scaramanga (both the character in the book and as portrayed by Christopher Lee), but it's a lackluster movie all told. Similarly, I will always have a soft spot for Moonraker, but that movie has a LOT of faults. (Ironically I just finished reading Christopher Wood's novelization and it is much better than what ended up on the screen.)

As far as best? Goldfinger is the popular choice because it is the correct answer. Just fabulous from start to finish. I am also very partial to The Spy Who Loved Me, which is as far as I am concerned the "perfect" Roger Moore Bond picture.