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Thursday, January 04, 2007
# Posted 8:03 PM by Ariel David Adesnik
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
Comments:
It takes a great villain to make a hero, and so the best Bond movies have been those with the best bad guys.
For me, it was Sean Bean walking out of the fog and simply saying, "Hello James." Shivers. And it helps to have a great assistant bad guy, like Alan Cumming. Next up a great Bond movie has to have a great Bond chick. Izabella Scorupco always did it for me. Famke Janssen wasn't a bad villainess, but she doesn't come anywhere near to a Grace Jones. The M's, Q's and Miss Moneypenny's neither make nor break a Bond movie. They add a bit of business, but they get harder to justify. Lastly, if Bond can spell VW then he fits the bill as a hero, as long as he doesn't get in the way. Brosnan wasn't a very good Bond. Still he was better than Moore, and he didn't get in the way.
I haven't seen the new Casino Royale, but the first movie version of Casino Royale is arguably the worst Bond movie of all time.
Surely the most ridiculous thing about YOLT was Bond impersonating a Japanese person?
Otherwise your points are all good, but I still think that Moonraker is worse for numerous reasons such as the fight with the giant python, Jaws getting a girlfriend, a pigeon doing a double take and the various lame attempts to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars. That said, I think it is so bad that it is actually worth watching ... so maybe that actually puts it above YOLT.
I rise in defense of YOLT. In 1967
when I was 12 years old I saw the picture at the El Rancho Drive-In Theater in South San Francisco, California, and I thought it was pretty neato. The way the Japanese elements were folded into the plot --Sumo wrestling, a wedding ceremony, a fishing village--gave me the feeling that I had actually learned something. A few years ago I would have agreed about the implausibility of the plot but having seen numerous recent instances of comprehensive governmental incompetence I can now accept the idea of bad guys carrying out massive, expensive schemes of criminality right under the nose of authority. Trivia note: Back in the late '60s I would watch the weekly professional wrestling show on local TV. One of the prominent grapplers of those days was a beefy Samoan named Peter Maivia. Imagine my surprise when I saw him in YOLT--he plays the bad guy who battles Bond in the highrise office of Osato. It was his one and only movie gig. Trivia bonus: Maivia's grandson is the current wrestler-action-star The Rock.
There are several replica Hermes that are sold for really low prices. However, it does not mean that all of these are fakes. The difference of a real from the sham is that the former does not have a hangtag made from paper. We just need to be careful and serious when decide to pay for one.
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