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 fails the boots, the scuba gear, or the automobiles left him by Moore and Connery." In 2006, IGN ranked "Licence to Kill" fifteenth out of the then 21 Bond films, claiming it is "too grim and had strayed too far from the Bond formula." Norman Wilner of MSN considered "Licence to Kill" the second worst Bond film, above only "A View to a Kill", but defended Dalton, saying he "got a raw deal. The actor who could have been the definitive 007 ... had the bad luck to inherit the role just as the series was at its weakest, struggling