Review of You Only Live Twice (2007) by Julian J — 03 Apr 2009

"You Only Live Twice" is Sean Connery's fifth outing as Agent 007. Set in Japan, it introduces the Bond audience to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.

A mysterious space vessel is eating American and Soviet space capsules. The vessel is tracked to landing in Japan, and 007 is sent to the Land of the Rising Sun to investigate in an effort to prevent conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. With the help of Japanese agent Tiger Tanaka and his special army of Ninjas, Bond infiltrates SPECTRE's secret volcano lair to try and stop SPECTRE once more.

I can understand why a lot of people don't like this movie. Sean Connery sleepwalks through this, not nearly being as witty and clever as in his previous performances. Although he beds three women in this movie, there is no romantic spark between any of them. However, being that its set in Japan, and being a former resident of Japan, I find a certain sentiment to it. Japan is an exotic locale and really makes this movie golden.

One thing of note is the "James Bond is dead" notion presented in the beginning of the film (James Bond fakes his death so he could move around freely without SPECTRE's suspicion) and is a welcome change of pace. Gadgets are light in this one; James Bond flies a mini-helicopter and uses a rocket-firing cigarette.

I enjoyed it, but I can understand why a lot of people didn't. It was too campy for its own good, and didn't have as much seriousness as the previous films (you can mix serious and campy, people). It gave 007 an excuse to go to Japan, introduced us to Blofeld, and had Ninjas overtaking an evil secret lair. Seriously, if that isn't awesome, I don't know what is.