Licence to Kill tilt onto its side, it was not necessary as Julienne was able to pull off the stunt without the aid of camera trickery. Initially Vic Flick, who had played lead guitar on Monty Norman's original 007 theme, and Eric Clapton were asked to write and perform the theme song to "Licence to Kill" and they produced a theme to match Dalton's gritty performance, but the producers turned it down and instead Gladys Knight's song and performance was chosen. The song (one of the longest to ever be used in a Bond film) was based on the "horn line" from "Goldfinger",
Licence to Kill playful sparkle in his eyes, Timothy Dalton's Bond is ... serious here." Overall French called "Licence to Kill" "an entertaining, untaxing film". Ian Christie in the "Daily Express" excoriated the film, saying that the plot was "absurd but fundamentally dull", a further problem being that as "there isn't a coherent storyline to link [the stunts], they eventually become tiresome." Hilary Mantel in "The Spectator" dismissed the film. "It is a very noisy film. There is a weary and repetitive note to the frenzy. The sex is low key and off-screen but there is a smirking perverse undertow which makes the