You Only Live Twice on Prime Video — No Honeymoon
It was becoming obvious that the producers of the movie were getting too greedy with their star, Sean Connery, in the previous movie. Connery is getting bored and he is beginning to show it.
In You Only Live Twice, it’s even more obvious.
At many times, it seems like a lot of people involved in the movie, starting with Sean Connery, had simply stopped caring. The editor of the movie has definitely given up on any sort of plot coherence in the last 30 minutes of the movie.
Specifically, the final battle, for some reason (hint: boobies), drags Mie Hama along with it. When the battle begins, she is already wearing the shortest shorts, the costume designers can come up with it. Later, for no reason at all, she has dressed down to her lingerie.
She is not even near water! Mie Hama, is hot, but this was just egregious. I love a good set of boobs in my James Bond movie. But, this is too much boobies even for me.
Anyway, we have our first, terrible bond movie.
Tourism Commercial?
Just before the humongous, massive, almost cool climax, James Bond, becomes ‘Japanese’. It’s just as ridiculous as it sounds. He also becomes a ‘ninja’. Again, equally ridiculous.
Then, he gets married! We had sit through the entire marriage sequence. I was like, why? SPECTRE already knows that James Bond is after their tail. Bond already had many shootouts with them, met the bosses, slept with one of their agents.
Why the ruse of a fake wedding, fake Japanese make up and acting like a fisherman. I am sorry. I love all the bond movies, including this, bizarre weird movie, but why?
SPECTRE Spectacular
It’s obvious that this entire movie is a remake of Dr. No, a far superior movie in every possible way. This is essentially Dr. No — Japan Edition.
Thanks to the Austin Powers movies (and I have watched them repeatedly in the last few years. I love satire and parodies), I cannot take Blofield seriously anymore. When Blofeld bent to the side to show himself, I started laughing.
However, it’s clear that he is scary. I cannot find the scariness anymore. I liked it when he was faceless.
It’s not my fault. Austin Powers is just too good of a parody. I see now, most of that movie, came from this movie. I missed the fact this movie did not have interesting villains. Perhaps, they assumed that Blofeld’s presence alone is enough to make up for everything else.
I feel like, they just got lazy.
Little Nelly and Huge Lair
I love the Japanese setting. The first 70 % of the movie is well made. Shaky but well made. The opening sequence where Bond gets fake killed. Putting him in a fake coffin. The meeting with Tanaka and the villain company boss. That tracking shot on the rooftop while bond runs from the ship docks.
The Little Nelly helicopter fight sequences. The bond movies never disappoint when it comes to innovative action sequences. That entire scene added nothing to the story, but I am glad it was there. It’s so so cool. The musical score that goes with that helicopter action is just out of this world.
Tanaka has that awesome ninja training school. The underground rail road. Even in a bad story with shoddy editing and lack of flow, Sean Connery, bored, but he is so charming man. This guy can be so cool even when he is just bored. He is just naturally cool.
I was beginning to wonder, when will we see another lair like Dr. No. This one is, much bigger and it looks like they actually built it. Some of this might be miniature set, but most of it is real. They don’t do sets like this anymore. I think all the budget went to this set. The music is so awesome. The title song with that soul filled voice of Nancy Sinatra.
I felt emotional during many action sequences of the movie, because of the music. I truly wish they spent a little bit more with the writing, and story and the overall flow. Such a lost opportunity.
Scoring
I am marathon watching the James Bond movies and I wish to rank them at the end. So, I came up with a numbering system. The scores for this one are here.
- Action and Stunts 7/9
- Coolness Cool 9/9
- Double Entendre and One Liners 4/9
- Hot Women 9/9
- Ludicrous Villainy, Cool Deaths and Traps 5/9
- Gadgets Man! 9/9
- General Awesomeness 9/9
- Boredom Factor -3/-9
Total : 49
Final Note
It was inevitable that I would bump into a bad James Bond movie. This is the first one, and there are more bad movies like this as we go deep into the series.
This is the last bond movie with Sean Connery (he comes back two more times) for now. The rushed nature of the movie is its undoing. That thing with the costume change with Mie Hama still bothers me.
But, the volcano lair. That’s just, awesome. Just awesome.
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