Review of You Only Live Twice (1967) by Compi24 — 18 Feb 2019

For the first hour of this movie, I found myself honestly wondering why this particular film wasn't considered amongst the upper echelon of films in the James Bond franchise. The action was terrific, the plot was intriguing, and the setting was a welcomed change of pace for the series at the time.

Then, the second half of the film occurred. Now, strictly speaking, it's not "bad," but it does underperform greatly when compared to the prior hour. The story gets a little bit too grand and silly for its britches, the visuals become increasingly more dated, and one of the more problematic elements I've ever seen in a Bond film is introduced and relied upon too heavily for me to ignore.

All in all, "You Only Live Twice" does feature some fairly dynamite Bond elements throughout (i.e. the theme, the action overall, etc.) but its preposterous second half almost drags it into the depths of self-parody.