: (Michael Kamen) Tough times fell
upon the James Bond franchise at the end of the 1980's. Its 16th entry,
, was a fiscal disappointment and years of legal
wrangling over the rights to the character caused a delay in the
production of the subsequent feature,
. The first Bond
film to earn a PG-13 rating in America was indeed
, with greater violence and a refusal to adhere to the formula
of the series by cutting back on the charming elements usually inherent
in these movies. In the plot, Bond angrily leaves the secret service to
avenge a Latin American drug lord's attack on his CIA contact and
friend, Felix Leiter. The story is decidedly low tech and personal,
befitting well Timothy Dalton's more serious interpretation of the
character. Just as Dalton was beginning to repair the damage that Roger
Moore had done to Ian Fleming's famed spy (a circumstance leading to
generally positive initial reviews of the film), the legal dispute that
delayed the series' continuation ushered in the massively successful
Pierce Brosnan era, further relegating
to
obscurity. Production nightmares involving the film were many, extending
all the way up to the title of the film; a last-minute change from
caused a disastrous promotional campaign. Equally
problematic was the soundtrack situation with
,
which is about as dissatisfying as any in James Bond history.
Originally, John Barry was to return once again to build upon his legacy
with a follow-up to his highly regarded
.
Additionally, Eric Clapton was to collaborate with original series
guitar favorite Vic Flick to provide a new interpretation on Monty
Norman's classic theme for the title song. Throat surgery, however, did
not allow Barry to fit the film into his schedule, and the late removal
of Clapton yielded a title song performed by Gladys Knight that suffered
from attribution problems. The music supervisor for the film, a first
for the franchise, recommended that the score be subsequently handed to
Michael Kamen late in production as well.
Kamen had proven himself in Hollywood with his music for
Lethal Weapon and
Die Hard, among others, and he had
collaborated with pop artists before in producing mainstream songs.
Regardless of his talent, Kamen was at a significant disadvantage with
Licence to Kill in terms of time and coordination, and his
resulting work, while basically sufficient, is usually forgotten in the
larger scene of James Bond music. The song situation for the movie was
sloppy, with the opening and closing credits songs both running into
unique problems. Gladys Knight's "Licence to Kill," which previews Tina
Turner's instrumental and vocal tones for "Goldeneye," is not
particularly remarkable in its primary melody. In fact, it owes far too
much to fluffier pop mannerisms of the era to really stand apart as a
memorable identity in the franchise. The only interesting part of the
song is that which got it into trouble; the songwriters utilized the two
opening brass notes from the classic "Goldfinger" song repetitively
without attribution; eventually, John Barry and others had to be
credited and paid royalties due to this blatant usage. Because "Licence
to Kill" was also the longest song to ever be recorded for a Bond film,
it had to be artificially shortened for the film. The other song, "If
You Asked Me To," is heard over the end credits and is historically
known for Celine Dion's cover version from three years later. Patti
LaBelle's voice is far too irritating in its dainty tone when compared
to Dion's smoother tones, so once again, it's no wonder that few people
recall
Licence to Kill for its music. Neither original song for
the film went on to burn up the charts, barely registering on various
sub-charts for a short time. Due to the ill-advised presence of the
music supervisor as a barrier between the songs and score, this film
became a rarity in which they simply don't intersect whatsoever, not
even at the periphery of style. Not surprisingly, because of the lack of
Kamen's involvement in either song, their melodies are not adapted at
all into the score, leading to a musical detachment that was quickly
deemed unacceptable for the franchise at the time but sadly happened far
more frequently thereafter due to continued music supervisor presence
and composer marginalization.
In general, Kamen's music is often considered adequate
but not really noteworthy, functional but by no means spectacular. As a
capable composer, he did execute some interesting variations on the
original Monty Norman theme and place a few short tributes to Barry's
habitual series mannerisms in a few places. Kamen was also quite
accomplished at creating Latin flair when necessary, and
Licence to
Kill was obviously a good place for that sound's introduction into
the franchise. For casual observers of the movies, the resulting score
dutifully serves its purpose somewhat conservatively and doesn't
distract in the way that Eric Serra's often painful
Goldeneye
later did. Additionally, Kamen's score utilizes few non-traditional
symphonic instruments outside of the acoustic guitar, and because his
style is a bit generic, it has aged remarkably well when compared to the
one-time contributions to the Bond universe by Marvin Hamlisch and Bill
Conti. To avid Kamen collectors, there are many satisfying connections
between
Licence to Kill and suspense motifs in
Die Hard
and the romantic tone of
Don Juan DeMarco, as well as competent
orchestrations. Unfortunately, Kamen also made a few tremendous blunders
in
Licence to Kill that were only exacerbated by an absolutely
wretched initial album release. First, his inability to translate one of
the song's melodies into an overarching identity for the score is
compounded by his choice not to provide his own dominant motif for the
score. In fact, he really makes no attempt to provide
Licence to
Kill with any kind of main theme at all, instead playing it safe
with bland underscore, a misplaced love theme, occasional references to
the Norman theme, and the vaguely Latin atmosphere. A James Bond score
without a main theme is simply unacceptable, and Kamen baffles with this
strategic decision because he was too good a composer to fall into such
a basic trap. The aforementioned love theme problem is a curious one;
Kamen, for some reason, decided to provide Bond's primary love interest
with a gorgeously Latin acoustic guitar identity (as heard in "Pam").
The problem is that she's an American CIA informant. Likewise, Dalton's
performance is sometimes treated to Latin flair, which goes against
Barry's tradition of keeping Bond's identity purely rooted in Norman's
original jazzy tone or some variant of it. Why this material wasn't
restricted to general location shots or the drug lord and his henchmen
is bizarre.
The suspense music in
Licence to Kill is
awkwardly limp, sometimes relying on a solo bass woodwind or bloated
tuba. The mass of underscore is remarkably boring and nondescript,
exactly the opposite of this franchise's history. The lack of momentum
in this work is contrary to the rhythm that Bond scores typically
exhibit, even in their subtle moments. These difficulties yield an
average overall score that still has its highlights. Undoubtedly, "Pam"
is a pretty track on its own, and the truck chase in "Licence Revoked"
features some brassy interludes for Norman's theme that rival David
Arnold's in force. Also, some outstanding action moments in "James &
Felix on Their Way to Church" culminate in a stunning final minute that
includes a lovely nod to Barry's
You Only Live Twice. Trying to
seek these limited highlights on MCA Records' 1989 album frustrated the
hell out of listeners, though. Few soundtracks have been as badly
mangled in their presentation as
Licence to Kill, and it took an
unusually long time for a longer, more sensible score album to emerge.
On the original MCA product, the placement of the songs near the start
of the album is fine, though they include two worthless source pieces.
Fourteen score cues are butchered severely in how they were edited for
the album's six instrumental tracks, and evidence of these badly managed
edits can be clearly heard within nearly all of them. Some of the sudden
transitions are distractingly severe and amateurish. There is no flow to
the album as a result, and anyone trying to assemble a chronological
presentation of the music as heard in the film would have had better
luck proving the existence of God to an atheist. Finally, in 2025, La-La
Land Records expanded the score's presentation and placed it in proper
film order, a major relief from a narrative viewpoint. But the 91-minute
film version of the score only exposes all the troublesome flaws of the
score to an even greater degree. The extra material newly revealed, in
other words, causes the experience to become insufferably long, the bulk
of the suspense music comprising the additions. Listeners assuming that
a fuller presentation would save this score on album could be deeply
disappointed by how incredibly dull the longer product can be, with the
mass of material between the opening and closing Norman-fueled action
moments failing to provide any new points of interest. A variety of
additional source pieces and the album arrangement round out the second
disc in the 2-CD set, and despite the product's faithful presentation of
the score in the best of light, a boon for enthusiasts of the work,
it'll be an arduous slog overall for many. Appreciate the singular
highlights of the score for what they are, but be prepared for one of
the more sadly disconnected Bond soundtracks on either of its albums.
@Amazon.com: CD or
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- Music as Written for the Film: ***
- Music as Heard on the 1989 Album: *
- Music as Heard on the 2025 Album: **
- Overall: **
| Bias Check: |
For Michael Kamen reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13
(in 15 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.22
(in 34,777 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
