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Timothy Dalton is out for revenge in his second and final outing as James Bond. Continuing the more serious tone set by The Living Daylights, Licence to Kill opens in the Florida Keys with a fatal attack on Bond’s longtime American friend Felix (Live and Let Die‘s David Hedison) and his new bride. When M (Robert Brown) directs Bond to let the Americans bring the culprits to justice, 007 resigns from the service and goes rogue. With a brash, beautiful pilot (Carey Lowell) at his side, Bond heads to Central America with his sights on the film’s uber-baddie, a Colombian drug lord played by Robert Davi (The Goonies, Predator 2).

Licence to Kill is a faster-paced, more explosive action movie than The Living Daylights. Dalton gets a chance to play more of the human side of Bond than we usually get to see, while Davi makes a great addition to the franchise’s roster of villains. Lowell is not one of the more memorable Bond Girls, but that’s mostly due to the way her character is written, simultaneously a warrior of Bond’s equal and childishly infatuated with him. Talisa Soto has a slightly better part, as Davi’s abused girlfriend. After Davi whips her with a leather belt for being with another man, she starts working with Bond. The film flirts with the idea of a love triangle between Bond, Lowell, and Soto, but it goes nowhere. And it’s just as well — it seems more like a situation for Roger Moore’s Bond than Dalton’s.

There are a number of other well-cast supporting parts, including Desmond Llewelyn in his 14th appearance as Q, Bond’s exasperated quartermaster and inventor of gadgets. Q’s along for the adventure a little more than usual for a nice change. Anthony Zerbe (The Omega Man) plays a smarmy cohort of Davi’s who gets possibly the most horrific death scene of the entire series when Davi locks him in a decompression chamber and makes his head (literally) explode. Singer Wayne Newton makes a humorous appearance as a corrupt televangelist in league with Davi and Zerbe. But perhaps the most notable supporting turn comes from a young Benicio Del Toro (The Usual Suspects, One Battle After Another) in one of his earliest performances as Davi’s number one goon.

The thrills this time around include a terrific, elaborate sequence in which a Bond goes from scuba-diving to water skiing, to catching a plane as it takes off the water. The climax of the film is a satisfying tanker chase in which a number of gasline-filled trucks go up in monstrous fireballs. Composer Michael Kamen (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon) takes over the scoring duties for the first time, respecting tradition while also leaving his own indelible mark on the series. Gladys Knight performs the bass-laden title track while Patti LaBelle performs an equally catchy closing tune called “If You Asked Me To”. The title sequence, a creative hallmark of the Bond franchise, is the 14th and final one created by Maurice Binder, the talented artist who pioneered the tradition.

Licence to Kill would be the first James Bond film not to be followed by a sequel within two years’ time. With ever-diminishing financial returns, EON Productions would decide to wait six years before relaunching the series in 1995 with a new actor as Bond. It’s a shame this onus would fall upon Licence to Kill, because it’s a solidly entertaining film. It’s possibly the best-directed of John Glen’s five entries and Timothy Dalton was just starting to find his footing as the ‘more serious’ Bond he was hired to be. Licence to Kill doesn’t deserve to remembered as a franchise killer. It’s due for rediscovery and reassessment.

With Everett McGill (Twin Peaks, Dune), Frank McRae (1941, Batteries Not Included), Priscilla Barnes, and Caroline Bliss as Moneypenny.