Review of You Only Live Twice (2007) by James W — 16 Jun 2013

With this film I feel like the Bond producers saw the piles of cash the previous ones raked in, so they decided to stick with the formula. SPECTRE does something bad, Bond is put on the case, they try to kill him, and he ends up foiling their plans with the help of an army he calls in. This time that formula is taken to Japan so it will at least feel a little different from its predecessors. I'm a little surprised by some of the racial stereotypes, and other racially insensitive comments they throw around in this film, but viewers probably wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow back in the 1960s. I can't see this movie being made in the 2000s, though. Besides, what seems cliche now, like an army of ninjas was fresh and new back when this film was released. I imagine a lot of Americans were completely unfamiliar with all this stuff, and it still looks pretty cool now.

Bond has a stream of girls so consistently through this film that I didn't even bother counting. He sleeps with every single female who's even slightly attractive that appears on camera, even if he knows they are working for SPECTRE. They justify this by having Bond claim it was all for Queen and country, because apparently sleeping with her was the only way to get her to try killing him. Anyways, at least they make it clear that Bond's *ahem* lips aren't magic and force women to turn over a new leaf now. I think they actually used a few actual women's voices instead of dubbing which is a nice alternative to the prior run of Bond films. As for the villain, well we finally meet Blofeld face-to-face. He's much less intimidating than his voice made him sound in his first few appearances. I can definitely see why they recast for later Bond films. But the character's plans are appropriately devious, and his cool demeanor is an excellent foil for Bond.

I think the primary reason You Only Live Twice worked for me more than Thunderball is the fact that it didn't seem like they were taking themselves as seriously. There seemed to be more tongue-in-cheek moments, which allowed me to relax and just chuckle when things got a little over the top. Plus they managed to make me care about more of the characters. I don't know why, but I felt really bad for one of Bond's women as she died, where I could never work up that kind of reaction in Thunderball. The action was also a lot of fun to watch. It might be ridiculous watching these ninjas battling a bunch of guys with guns, but it still looks really cool. Overall I just found this movie to be an entertaining ride, probably my favorite since From Russia with Love. It's certainly not a great film, but I wouldn't mind watching it again any time.