My Movie Review on You Only Live Twice · 3:24pm Oct 6th, 2021

Greetings and salutations, my friends.

This is your top-of-the-line film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.

Today, for the 2nd installment of this year's "Spook Spectacular", and my 5th analysis on a member of the James Bond franchise, I'm gonna give you guys my take of Sean Connery's fifth outing as the title character: "You Only Live Twice".

Here's the rundown of this adventure:

During the Cold War, American and Russian spacecrafts have been mysteriously disappearing while in orbit after getting "swallowed" by a spaceship. Each of the two countries grows suspicious of the other because of this, and the threat of nuclear war follows thanks to the growing mistrust and tension.

Conversely, the British Intelligence believes that there's a dark power behind the thievery of the spacecrafts trying to cause America and Russia to go to war, and they've traced the whereabouts of the spaceship to be somewhere in Japan. With only a few days before a nuclear war begins, the British secret service sends one of their best agents to investigate the matter: James Bond, codenamed 007.

After I did my review on "Thunderball", I decided that I wouldn't waste any time at all in reviewing "You Only Live Twice". Similar to my previous review on "Hoodwinked", though, I had to see this movie twice to get my head in the game. Granted, I remember seeing the movie once a really long time ago, so I wasn't a stranger to it by any means.

Coming from a guy who saw "You Only Live Twice" two times in a row about a month ago, I will say that I didn't think this movie was perfect.

My biggest gripe was that the piranha scenes were the least impressive parts of the entire film. While I am aware that this movie was made long before there was any technological advancement, I could easily tell that the piranhas were simply bubbles generated by a large machine underwater. The move as a whole was not only a cheap alternative to having real piranhas, but it caused the moments to be surprisingly underwhelming.

Other than that, "You Only Live Twice" proved to be a fun ride regardless.

The acting, characters, and character development were among the reasons for why I think so.

Despite Sean Connery's presence as Bond becoming old news by this point, I was enraptured by him every step of the way. The way he took on every physically-demanding moment showed how incredibly committed he still was to his work, and he maintained all the charm and wit that helps Bond himself standout. Even if Connery was apparently only playing Bond in this movie for the money, of course. The character also had tons of development throughout the movie.

In addition to this, Tetsuro Tamba was an instant scene-stealer in his portrayal of Tiger Tanaka. Every moment with both him and his character was a joy to watch, and the chemistry shared between Tiger and Bond was enjoyable enough to garner interest right away. It was also nice to see the character not be subject to certain Japanese stereotypes, because if that happened Tiger wouldn't have been taken seriously by audiences as an authority figure and character.

The direction by Lewis Gilbert, and the screenplay by Roald Dahl, were likewise marvelously well-done.

In all honesty, I was surprised when I found out that Dahl was the screenwriter for this movie, and because of his enormous background as an author of children's books I thought he was a bizarre choice for writing a James Bond film. As I watched the movie, though, I was blown away by how Dahl was able to capture the spirit of the previous movies while bringing in something of his own. Lewis Gilbert also did a wonderful job directing this movie, and the best part was that he managed to help this movie be as fun and intriguing as possible in his own way.

One of the biggest things that's been fascinating to me is the fact that Gilbert and Dahl's collaboration on this movie was pretty tight-knit. I noted that "You Only Live Twice" carried the sense of two creative minds putting their heads together in order to bring the project to life. Everything about it felt like it was all them and not just the director or writer. The action sequences they came up with were enjoyable, the dialogue was brilliant, there were tons of entertaining humorous and witty moments, and there was plenty of heart and emotion that was deeply soul-tugging.

In conclusion, "You Only Live Twice" isn't a flawless James Bond film by any means. But, it does manage to be a serviceable and entertaining member of the series, and I'm proud that it proved to be just that.

So, I rate "You Only Live Twice" 4½ out of 5 stars.