Movie Review - You Only Live Twice (Bond 5)

Doumo Arigatou Mr. James Bondo!

After the flashy and excessive Thunderball, we move right along to You Only Live Twice! And you know what? I had fun! Sure, the action was cheesy and the plot ridiculous, but I could get into it this time!

A lot of that could be attributed to the fact that Bond spends most of this movie in Japan, and I'm something of a fan of Japanese culture and entertainment (especially the anime, manga, video games, etc.), so it was fun to see what Japan was like in the 60s (kind of). Now, I know that each Bond film takes place in a very nice, tourist-y area, but I really felt like this one was hammering it home pretty hard. "Go visit Japan," was a pretty heavy message for this movie.

Still, it was a lot of fun. The story (while not-coincidentally, as it turns out) borrows heavily from Dr. No, with US and Russian spacecraft competing with each other, but it all builds up to a fairly satisfactory climax, with Bond taking on a lair of mooks and then having to escape it as it explodes. In fact, I'd say the first half of the film is really very good. Not only do we get to see Bond sneaking into a building as a reaction to his friend being attacked, but probably the best scene is when Bond and his side-kick Aki check out the villain's docks, only to get ambushed by more minions, leading to a climatic footrace across the top of a building, all shot from a helicopter. It was a lot of fun, and reminded me of some of Jackie Chan's work a few decades later, as Bond evades a crowd of mooks by using the environment around him.

And it would be a Bond movie without some helicopters getting blow up. Here we have quite a thrilling (if silly) air-fight as Bond's dinky gyro takes on four helicoptors. With some wiggling around, he's able to take them all out with each of the toys at his disposal.  However, seeing the Anti-Aircraft heat seeking missiles do a complete 180 and hit the chopper behind him was completely laughable, but even then, I couldn't bring myself to think badly of it.

That being said, the movie does seem to bog down and fall apart a little in the final act, with Bond having to train and "become Japanese" to get closer to the bad guy's base. While the pacing seemed fine, and the big battle at the end was quite the set piece, the movie seems to stumble to an ending that feels hap-hazard on reflection.

Nowhere is this more apparent than with the film's big villain: Blofeld. While this is the movie where we finally get to see his face, and he does have a pretty good amount of screen presence, his actions leave something to be desired. Sure, he's ominous and demanding throughout most of the film, but once he finally meets Bond face-to-face, everything he does at this point feels awkward or not well thought out. I mean, he has Bond dead to rights, only to kill one of his minions (a bad habit of his!). Then he waits to try and kill Bond so that Bond can be conveniently saved by one of his allies. It's so arbitrary and reeks of Bond's Plot Armor.

So, yeah! This was a fun film. Definitely gets high marks from me. It's worth noting that Roald Dahl, the famous children's author, wrote most of the screen play for this one, which is definitly different for him. Still, as a fan of his books, it's a neat little tidbit. Well, onto the next one, with Lazenby! I've actually seen this one, so it will be interesting to focus on what he brings to the table after all the work Connery has done for the character!

Bond films by rank:

1. Goldfinger
2. You Only Live Twice
3. Dr. No
4. Thunderball
5. From Russia With Love