Licence to Kill: Ultimate Edition (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary Credits Featurette-Location Scouting With Peter Lamont Featurette-Behind The Scenes-On The Set With John Glen Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Ground Check With Corkey Fornof Featurette-Bond '89 Deleted Scenes-Sharkey Arrives, Bond & Sharkey Follow Yatch Deleted Scenes-Bond In Hotel Room, Cash Transaction Deleted Scenes-Bond Arrives In Isthmus, Bienvenidos M15 Amigos Deleted Scenes-Bond Returns To Casino, Bond Captured By Hong Kong Narcotic Deleted Scenes-Boat Ride Featurette-007, Women, Allies, Villians, Mission Combat Manuel Featurette-Q Branch And Exotic Locations Theatrical Trailer-Archive Gallery-Photo-Experience The World Of Bond In 1987
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	127:41
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (66:40) Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	John Glen
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Timothy Dalton Carey Lowell Robert Davi Talisa Soto Anthony Zerbe Frank McRae David Hedison Wayne Newton Benicio Del Toro Anthony Starke Everett McGill Desmond Llewelyn Pedro Armendáriz Jr.
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Michael Kamen Diane Warren

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Swedish Finnish Norwegian Danish Greek Hindi English Text Commentary Dutch Text Commentary	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The second and last of the Timothy Dalton era James Bond films, Licence To Kill, is probably the most underrated of all the Bond films. Why? Because, unlike the majority of Bond films, this one has heart. Whereas for the most part Bond does his bit for King and country, this is the one film where he truly has a personal stake in what is at hand (such can readily be argued for Die Another Day, but the personal vendetta at the core of Licence To Kill feels more real). It is also considerably more realistically violent than the majority of Bond films (wild stunts aside), and for this reason it has a hard and dark edge that appeals to me. Or maybe I’m just a fan of the Bond movies directed by John Glen.

    The simple premise of Licence To Kill is this: What would happen if Bond were to put all his training and knowledge to use to kill someone in the name of revenge? The result is nothing less than one of the best Bond films ever made, with real stunts that are truly death defying, a host of interesting characters including a truly realistic and evil villain (a very young Benecio Del Toro), and a tough ex-military pilot who goes down as one of Bond’s best matches (Carey Lowell).

    My one criticism of this film is Talisa Soto who, while most definitely beautiful, acts in a very wooden manner throughout this film. Maybe this was a technique to underplay her to Lowell’s Pam Bouvier, but you have to wonder what an all powerful drug lord like Franz Sanchez is doing so infatuated with her when he has more charisma. As a criticism, though, this is not a huge one, and as such I’m inclined to overlook it.

    Not as commercially successful as many of the other films in the Bond canon, in my opinion Licence To Kill has stood the test of time as a real film, not merely passing entertainment. A dark, violent and brutal look at the Bond character, I highly recommend this film.

Video

    Like the majority of Bond movies post the Connery era in this new Ultimate Edition release line, Licence To Kill is presented in 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced, mastered from a new high definition transfer. This is an excellent image. Upscaled to 1080i at 50Hz, I was again blown away.

    Again, the big difference is colour saturation, which, after the Lowry processing really does make this a whole new film. Again, I was genuinely surprised by the realistic image I got. The image is also sharper and more defined, and shadow detail is slightly improved.

    Film-to-video transfer artefacts are limited to some occasional background aliasing that I had to strain to see. A definite improvement over both the R4 and R1 original releases.

    Subtitles are available in an array of languages as listed above. I watched the subtitles in English for the Hearing Impaired. They are quite accurate.

    The dual layer pause is at 66:40. It occurs in the middle of a scene but is not disruptive.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is available in English 5.1 DTS (768Kb/s), as well as English in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (384Kb/s).

    While the Dolby Digital track is very good, and a nice remaster of the original, the DTS track is amazing.

    Dialogue is faultless, but with the DTS we get inflections and tones I missed with the Dolby Digital.

    There is also a greater range, and more aggressive use of surrounds. A great scene where you notice this is the shoot out at Milton Krest’s shark front. The score by Michael Kamen, though a little reminiscent of his scores for both Die Hard and its sequels and Lethal Weapon and its sequels, is given a very good rendition.

    The subwoofer is used heavily, though not to excess – it really brings home the advantages of having a big subwoofer, though.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menus

    All menus are 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, and most have a 2.0 Dolby Surround audio track. Some of the submenus are static and silent. All menus are uniformly clear and well presented.

Disc 1

Audio Commentary – John Glen (Director) and Actors

    Presented in 2.0 Dolby Surround, this commentary is similar to the one done for For Your Eyes Only, in that it is a re-edit of the commentary from the original R1 DVD release and other retrospective documentary features from that release, and then narrated like a documentary. Again, this is a great, and a very good format for an audio commentary.

Audio Commentary – Michael G. Wilson and Crew

    Presented in 2.0 Dolby Surround, this is another interesting technical commentary from Wilson and others.

Scene Selections

    Presented 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, with 2.0 Dolby Surround audio, each chapter has about a 10 second motion segment to choose from.

DVD Credits

Disc 2

Declassified: MI6 Vault

    The documentaries are all in 1.33:1, non-16x9 enhanced, the deleted scenes presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, all with a 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround audio::

• Location Scouting With Peter Lamont (5:22)
• On The Set With John Glen (4:16)
• Ground check With Corkey Fornof (9:26)
• Bond ‘89 (11:42)
• Deleted Scene: Sharkey Archives (0:27)
• Deleted Scene: Bond And Sharkey Follow Yacht (1:05)
• Deleted Scene: Bond In Hotel Room (1:13)
• Deleted Scene: Cash Transaction (0:41)
• Deleted Scene: Bond Arrives In Isthmus (1:18)
• Deleted Scene: Bienvenidos Mis Amigos (0:58)
• Deleted Scene: Bond Returns To Casino (1:08)
• Deleted Scene: Captured By Hong Kong Narcotics Agents (1:41)
• Deleted Scene: Boat Ride (1:22)

007 Mission Control

    Presented in 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced, and with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround audio, this contains a series of snippets from the movie on each of the following topics:

• 007
• Women
• Allies
• Villains
• Mission Combat Manual
• Q Branch
• Exotic Locations

Mission Dossier

    Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, non-16x9 enhanced (often with a 2.35:1 inset, so you get black bars at the top and bottom), and 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround audio, this submenu contains the following:

• Featurette: Inside Licence To Kill (30:42)
• Featurette: Behind The Scenes (4:55)
• Featurette: Kenworth Truck Stunt (9:30)
• Music Video: “Licence To Kill” (4:26)
• Music Video: “If You Asked Me To” (4:00)

Ministry Of Propaganda

    Presented in 1.33:1, Full Frame, with 2.0 Dolby Digital Surround audio, this is a collection of the marketing material for the movie:

• Theatrical Archive (3:06)

Image Database

    Presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced with the image inset within, these are a series of stills.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    We are told that these new Ultimate Editions will be released with identical content all over the world. The original R1 and R4 releases contained the same special features as are now in the menus for “Mission Dossier”, “Ministry of Propaganda” and “Image Database”. However, whereas the original R1 release had a fantastic picture (which still holds up, although the colour correction is an improvement) the original R4 release was censored and scarred by moderate aliasing and moire. The new Ultimate Edition corrects those faults.

    Licence To Kill is excellent, realistically violent Bond, much closer to Ian Fleming’s original incarnation of a ruthless and efficient spy.

    This DVD transfer is the best I’ve ever seen this show.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall