# Posted 8:03 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

BOND JUMPS THE SHARK: On Tuesday I asked if Casino Royale was the best Bond ever. What can surely be said is that isn't the worst. Conventional wisdom holds that the young Sean Connery made the early Bond films all classics. You Only Live Twice (1967) proves otherwise. It is simply terrible. But it isn't Connery's fault.

It would be generous to say that You Only Live Twice (YOLT for short) has a plot. It does have a story about an evil genius -- the ever-presentBlofeld -- who kidnaps US and Soviet spaceships, but that story is just a framing device for a series of disconnected and increasingly less plausible action sequences. The culmination of that story, of course, is Bond's infiltration of the kitschy lair of said villain.

Admittedly the film begins well, with Bond's "death", funeral, and emergence from his underwater casket wearing an immaculate tuxedo. From there it's downhill. First, Bond meets with the head of Japanese intelligence who, in apparent homage to his foes, has an underground lair of his own that can be reached by falling down a long metallic slide in a Tokyo alleyway. Although I'm willing to accept that evil geniuses are a bit erratic in their taste of lairs, it's just plain silly for the head of a great power's intelligence service to have an office like that.

Bond's gadgetry also goes well past the point of being ridiculous. In YOLT, Bond requests the dispatch of a portable miniature helicopter froom Britain to Japan. By portable, I mean that the copter can be disassembled, placed in a large trunk, and reassembled in a matter of minutes. In the copter, Bond looks like a cross between a cartoon character and an adult riding a children's tricycle. When Bond knocks an entire squadron of enemy helicopters out of the sky with his toy, it seems like a joke, like taking out a tank with a pistol. Bond's essence is charm, and this has none of it.

The greatest travesty, of course, is the final scene in which Bond invades the enemy lair with the aid of several hundred "ninjas". The scare quotes are necessary because these guys resemble Keystone Kops more than they do the silent killers of Japanese legend. (If you don't believe me, just ask a ninja.) The lair itself is supposedly the launch site for Blofeld's massive spacecraft. How, exactly, is it possible to launch massive spacecraft without alerting the locals to one's presence? Have you ever watched a space-shuttle launch?

The climactic battle in the space lair delivers a lot of noise and explosions, but not much excitement. The same could be said for the movie as a whole. What I want to know is, did audiences enjoy the movie at the time? Perhaps those of you with longer memories can add your thoughts below.

Next time: From Russia With Love. (5) opinions -- Add your opinion