Jarod, I have some problems with The Living Daylights, but the first 20 minutes or so---from the pre-credits scene through Koscov's escape in the pipeline---were practically Fleming INCARNATE.
They could've ended the movie with Dalton's line, "Whoever she was, must've scared the living daylights out of her." and it would've been the PERFECT Bond mini-movie.
Just perfection.
My big problem with The Living Daylights were:
1) I didn't think the villains were very menacing. I liked Koscov, but there was no one menacing to balance him. Necros, the badass underling, was cool but he wasn't in the movie much. The only other villain is Brad Whitaker, who likes playing with GI Joes; he was one of the weaker Bond villains.
2) The plot got kinda convoluted and hard to follow when we get to Afghanistan.
But I liked it overall!
IMO, there's no such thing as a flat-out bad Bond movie.