You Only Live Twice

You Only Live Twice

What the hell happened?!  The Bond franchise was consistently cranking out quality spy entertainment, had just produced the biggest hit of the series (Thunderball), and then they make this drek?  What were they thinking?!

Look, I understand there is law of diminishing returns when you start to make too many sequels.  But the dropoff in quality from the first four Bond films to You Only Live Twice is astounding and on the level of the epic Matrix to Matrix Reloaded dropoff.

Let me backtrack a bit.  The fifth film in the series finds James Bond faking his own death in order to go undercover and continue his battle with SPECTRE.  The nefarious organization refuses to stay down after their embarrassing defeat in Thunderball.  If anything, they are upping the ante.  Now they are capturing space shuttles and planting enough evidence so that cold war rivals United States and the Soviet Union blame each other.  Hopefully, this scheme will trigger a world war that SPECTRE would surely benefit from.  The Russians and Americans are belligerent and ready to fight immediately, but the British provide cooler heads and persuade the two super powers to wait until the mystery can be solved by their best man: James Bond.

Despite decent reviews and strong box office, I have to say that You Only Live Twice stinks.  It just absolutely stinks.  There are literally six things I like about this movie.  Literally.  Don't believe me?  Here we go:

1. Sean Connery is still awesome.  Maybe he's not up to Goldfinger and Thunderball levels, but he still gets the job done.  He is the best Bond of all time, after all.

2. John Barry writes ones of his most lush and lyrical Bond scores.  From the stunning love theme to the impending doom the music brings to the space shuttle scenes, Barry knocks this one out of the park.

3. The fight in the office with the sumo wrestler is pretty good.

4. There is one amazing aerial tracking shot of James Bond running along warehouse roofs near the Tokyo pier, fighting oncoming enemies along the way.  It's one helluva shot.  Kudos to Freddie Young, the three-time Oscar-winning Director of Photography who lensed this film.

5. The villain's base is inside a volcano, and let me tell you, that volcano set is pretty spectacular and a true highlight of Ken Adams' career.  Apparently the cost of that one set equaled the entire budget of Dr. No.

6. I like ninjas.

That's it.  That's what I like about You Only Live Twice.  What don't I like?  Well, how much time do you have?  Basically, the Bond formula has a reputation that includes both good and bad elements, and You Only Live Twice is like a greatest hits album of all that is bad about the franchise.  Stupid gadgets?  Check.  Dumb puns?  Check.  How about a villain monologuing and describing his master plan instead of killing Bond?  Check.  Or a villain killing his subordinates instead of killing Bond?  Check.  I also think that it is very telling that the Bond film most targeted by the Austin Powers' series is You Only Live Twice, right down to Dr. Evil's makeup and costume.

Let's get into some specifics here, since I feel like ranting.  SPOILER ALERT.

The plot doesn't make a lick of sense.  Part of the master plan is for Bond to go undercover as a Japanese fisherman until he can find SPECTRE's hidden base.  So they make Sean Connery Japanese.

...

Let me say that again.

They make Sean Connery Japanese.

They do this by giving him a Spock haircut and bushy eyebrows, and directing the six foot tall Connery to hunch over to look shorter and squint a lot.  Are you kidding me?  Then he goes to ninja school to learn to fight.  I don't know why.  But either way, it is obvious the master plan isn't working because the bad guys try to assassinate Bond two or three times while he is at the ninja school (and killing one of the film's two unmemorable Bond girls in the process).  What I don't understand is if SPECTRE knew Bond was at the ninja school and was disguised as a Japanese fisherman, then how come his disguise suddenly works so well once he leaves the school and goes to the Japanese fishing village?

Other nitpicks?  Little Nelly is silly.  Yes, I understand this gyrocopter was real and in principle I guess it is kind of neat.  But Connery just looks plain ridiculous flying that thing.  And the aerial fight sequence between the tiny Little Nelly and SPECTRE helicopters is just ridiculous.  I also don't understand the character of Helga Brandt (Karin Dor).  Her ruthlessness and red hair is certainly supposed to remind us of Fiona Volpe in Thunderball, but her character just makes no sense.  So she captures Bond and is about to torture him to death, but he bribes (and seduces) her into helping him escape.  Then when they are on the plane to Tokyo, she sabotages the plane and jumps out with a parachute, assuming Bond will crash.  Why?  Why?  Why does that make any sense?  If she was going to kill him, why not do it when he was tied up and already beaten?  Why go through the whole charade with the plane?  What was the point?  Look, I understand that the Bond formula can be absurd, but you can at least be creative about it!  In Live and Let Die, the villains strand Bond on a small island surrounded by alligators instead of just shooting him.  On a surface level, that is equally silly, but it also sets up a very cool stunt of Bond jumping on the backs of REAL alligators to get to back to the main land.  That's pretty damn cool.  And that's the way the formula is supposed to work.  When shitty villains like Helga Brandt appear and do shitty stuff that makes no sense, I understand why some people dislike the franchise.

And then we have the issue of Blofeld, James Bond's nemesis, the head of SPECTRE.  Up until now, we have never seen Blofeld beyond shots of his hands petting his cat.  But we've heard his ruthless and cold voice and we just knew he was a man to be reckoned with.  After a buildup of four films, we finally see Blofeld and the result is...well, Dr. Evil.

My opinion of You Only Live Twice was not affected by Mike Myers.  On the contrary, Dr. Evil is such a funny character because Myers hits the nail on the head - Donald Pleasance's Blofeld is as harmless as the cat he insists on petting on his lap.  He is one of the most underwhelming and weak sounding Bond villains of the franchise.  I don't blame Donald Pleasance.  He was a great actor and I am sure he had a great Blofeld in him.  I can only imagine it was the way he was written and directed.

Speaking of which, the script was by Roald Dahl instead of Richard Maibaum who wrote the previous films.  So let me get this straight...you need a new writer for the James Bond franchise and you go for the dude who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

Come on, guys.  Get with it.  No wonder Sean Connery wanted to leave the series after this movie.  It just sucks.  Done.  I don't have anything else to say.

RANKINGS:

Well, I think this is pretty obvious.  You Only Live Twice is going at the bottom of the list.  The question is, is anything worse?

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

BEST LINE:
Tiger and Bond are being bathed by Tiger Tanaka's women.

Tiger: You know what it is about you that fascinates them, don't you?  It's the hair on your chest. Japanese men all have beautiful bare skin.

Bond: A Japanese proverb says, "Bird never make nest in empty tree."

TRIVIA:
In the book, Blofeld's base is an ancient Japanese castle built along the coast.  When researching for the film, Oscar-winning production designer Ken Adam discovered this would be impossible to find. The Japanese never built castles near the coast because of typhoons.  Thinking quickly, Adam's solution was to create the volcano base.  And history was made!

MVP:
So out of the few things I like about this movie, which one is actually strong enough to become MVP?  I think I am going with John Barry and his superb score.  You Only Live Twice is just a terrific piece of work, with one of the best themes of Barry's career. It's a tough call because I am tempted to go with ninjas or that volcano set, but I think in the end, the MVP goes to John Barry.

Thunderball

Thunderball

When I was a teenager, I have a very clear memory of rushing into my dad's office and I telling him I had just seen Goldfinger and that it was amazing.  His response has always stuck in my head.  "Just wait until you see Thunderball."

I will never know why I didn't just rush out and see Thunderball immediately.  That's just common sense.  The clips I had seen didn't seem particularly exciting, I suppose, but you would still think I would trust my dad and watch the movie.  Years later, I finally did.

And, boy, was he right!  Thunderball is pretty spectacular and easily one of the best films of the franchise.  After sitting Goldfinger out, Terence Young (who directed the first two Bond films) returned to the director's chair.  And I have a feeling that he looked at Goldfinger, realized that Guy Hamilton had just upped the ante, and responded by saying, "oh, yeah?!  You think you're better than me?  Get ready for a surprise!" Because Thunderball pushes things up to even bigger level - featuring a more interesting story with a true global nuclear threat, armies of scuba divers in a massive underwater battle, and two of the best Bond girls of the series.

An American jet and its nuclear warheads have gone missing.  The culprit?  SPECTRE, making a return appearance in a big way after taking Goldfinger off to lick their wounds.   If the world doesn't pay $100 million, then SPECTRE will use the nuclear weapons to attack a major city.  Bond only has a few days before SPECTRE makes good on their threat and heads to the Bahamas to track the warheads down.  It's a simple enough plot, but the plots rarely matter in the Bond films.  This movie is the franchise firing on all cylinders, from the action to the scripting to the acting.

The villain this time is Largo, SPECTRE's second-in-command.  As played by Adolfo Celi, he is menacing enough and certainly efficient in carrying out his master plan.  But he is overshadowed by his right hand, one of SPECTRE's best assassin, Fiona Volpe (played by Luciana Paluzzo).  Paluzzo is superb, bringing the right balance of sexy and menace to the role.  You know that Bond will eventually beat Largo, but you are not too sure about Volpe.  Like Red Grant in From Russia With Love, you get the sense that she is not only equal to Bond, but possibly even better.  I'm also a fan of the other Bond girl, Largo's trophy girlfriend, Domino.  Though played by a former Miss France (Claudine Auger), Domino is more than just a pretty face, and unlike a lot of Bond girls, is essential to the plot.

I have some friends who are not a fan of Thunderball.  They think it is slow and not particularly interesting.  But I disagree.  I think it perfectly blends the more methodical spy work of the first two films with the over-the-top entertainment of Goldfinger.  The story is interesting, the stakes seem real, and Connery is at the top of his game.  All in all, I think it is a great film.

Sure, if you want me to nitpick, I can.  I can always find something I don't like about a movie.  I've never been a fan of the jet pack gadget in the opening scene, and view it as a sign of bad things to come (invisible cars, anybody?).  I don't care if someone really built a jet pack and used it in the movie.  It's silly.  The underwater battle, though exciting, probably goes on for 5-minutes too long and gets a bit repetitive, and bad rear projection and over-editing almost ruin the final fight on Largo's boat.

But I say "almost" because it's still fun for me and contains two of my favorite individual moments of the film.  SPOILER ALERT.  I love the second Bond bursts into the ship's bridge to kick butt, a badass moment perfectly punctuated by John Barry's score, and I love that Domino is the one who actually kills Largo.  It's fitting, and from a filmmaking perspective, a beautifully framed shot.  Okay, Spoilers over.

In the end, not everyone loves Thunderball.  But I do.  It takes what works best about all the previous films and then pushes the series into even greater heights.  It has to be seriously considered on the conversation as the best film in the franchise.

RANKINGS:
For taking everything Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger did right, while not taking on their weaknesses, Thunderball leaps to the top of the rankings.  Here is how the rankings are playing out so far:

1. Thunderball
2. From Russia With Love
3. Goldfinger
4. Dr. No


BEST LINE:

James Bond, after spearing Vargas to death: "I think he got the point."

MVP:
As good as Sean Connery is, I have to go with Luciana Paluzzo.  She might be my favorite evil Bond girl actually. She is glamourous, edgy, dangerous and ruthless.  But she also represents an important turning point in the franchise.  Dr. No, while not physically impressive, was menacing enough that you worried for Bond's well-being.  Red Grant and Oddjob both represented dangerous adversaries that we weren't sure Bond could defeat.  Fiona Volpe belongs in the same camp as these icons, but she also represents the end of an era.  Her stalking of Bond in the middle of the film marks the last time I felt that the super spy was in any sort of real danger for over four decades.  The series has had its share of great villains with great dastardly schemes, but I never felt Bond was in any danger.  Not even close.  Not until Daniel Craig's Bond was tied naked to the chair and brutally tortured in Casino Royale in 2006 did I feel that Bond was vulnerable again.  I am giving Paluzzo the MVP not only for her great performance, but also because this is the last appearance of a truly threatening presence, the likes of which we wouldn't see again for literally 41 years.  That's pretty crazy.

TRIVIA:
Thunderball has a bit of controversial history.  Originally, the story was conceived in 1959 as a screenplay called James Bond: Secret Agent, co-written by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory, and Jack Whittingham. For whatever reason, that film did not get made and Fleming cannibalized the plot for his novel Thunderball.  When Saltzman, Broccoli and Eon Productions obtained the film rights to the series, McClory immediately sued.  After years of acrimony, the feuding producers decided to team up and produce this film together.  The result was the most successful movie in franchise history.  But then the partnership dissolved.  While Eon Productions continued with the main franchise, McClory retained the rights to Thunderball and tried to remake the film repeatedly over the decades.  He was constantly stymied by Eon's lawyers and his attempts kept coming to nothing.  He did succeed once, in 1981, when he lured Sean Connery back to the role and produced Never Say Never Again.