Review of You Only Live Twice (2007) by Ronald N — 03 Feb 2013

Bond seems to have two lives in life but he seemed to survive more near death experiences then Batman or MacGuyver altogether.

YOLT would be one of my fav Bond guilty pleasures to watch. This is not a great Bond film and those who have seen this automatically see the flaws. For me, I just have to look at the picture as is (and i've said this countless of times) as pure entertainment. "Goldfinger" is the best Bond of the sixties so YOLT is slightly below the ranks (Other users would easily vote Diamonds Are Forever as the worst Connery/Bond film). This is probably the last time audiences would get a good look at Connery in his prime before he starts to gain more weight and lose some of his dashing good looks in the following years to come.

The plot involves...Well, does a Bond plot really need explaining?! An American spacecraft is hijacked from orbit by an unidentified spacecraft, the Americans believe it's Russians, the British believe Japan may have something to do with the encounter, MI6 send out Bond to invistigate the matter, which takes his travels to Tokyo, Japan. On his way their he meets his usual encounters in typical Bond picture, enemy encounters, exotic locales, gadgets, and beautiful women.

The Bond formula up to this point is starting to get kinda tiring, yet the director of YOLT Lewis Gilbert has a pretty good vision in keeping the story's pace entertaining. I guess I was taken away with the beauty and codes and ethics of cultural Japan. And yes the admirartion of Japanese women. I couldn't get over the campy tone of giving Connery Asian features. In a way, found that to be kind of racist. Probably would have been more racist to ppl if 007's mission was set somewhere in Africa, put him in blackface sporting African features. That's another far flung thought.

The first half of the picture is well done, a lot of action chase scenes, little character involvement with the second half of the picture filled with wall to wall special effects. Don't know what to say about Blofeld (Donald Pleasance). To me, Blofeld comes and goes, just like how his spoiled cat was scared to death during production. The score in YOLT is done well by John Barry and admired Nancy Sinatra singing the opening title theme of the picture.