Word: bond
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Dalton's first outing as Bond, in the 1987 The Living Daylights, was an obvious attempt to get away from the light-hearted jokester that Roger Moore had made of the role. Dalton, a well-known stage actor (he used to be with the Royal Shakespeare company) was supposed to be a newer, younger Sean Connery, who may not have played the role the way Ian Fleming envisioned it, but who is nonetheless the paradigmatic Bond...
Dalton also has tried to bring some psychological drama back to the role. His Bond, balancing on the edge of sanity, is still haunted by the death of his wife. And the attack on Felix pushes him almost over the edge. He drops his Secret Service duties and embarks on a murderous hunt for Sanchez...
...enlists a little help from all the traditional Bond staples. As the main female lead, Carey Lowell provides a bit of excitement at first; she's a CIA informer for Felix whom Dalton picks up during his investigation. They narrowly escape death at their first meeting, and spend an amusing few minutes arguing over who saved whose life and who acted most professionally. Unfortunately, Lowell's role quickly degenerates to the point where she's half kept woman and half sidekick...
...Sanchez, Davi gets to play one of the best Bond villains in years. He also gets to deliver a few deadpan one-liners, which are occasionally amusing. Basically, Sanchez is just an entrepreneur with a sadistic streak. ("I want you to know, this is nothing personal. It's purely business," he tells Felix as he is lowered to the waiting shark...
...despite Bond's pseudoretirement, he manages to retain the services of Q (Desmond Llewelyn), who supplies him with an array of lethal gadgets from exploding alarm clocks to signature rifles...