You Only Live Twice

drystyx 4/4/2023 2:48:01 AM 8.4

This is in the hay day of 007 films. Made when 007 was exciting and entertaining. That gets a lot of hate from people with Generation Xenophobe ideology. But it's totally exciting. Here, we get almost all the venues. We even get outer space. We get super beautiful scenery that pretty much make this one of the great Bond films, secure at number 5 in my opinion. Most of this is set in Japan, and much of it is filmed there. While Thunderball inspired the most in Austin Powers, this is probably second place in inspiration for Austin, and that's a good thing. Let us face the fact that the modern day 21st century Bond movies couldn't inspire Nolan Ryan to throw a baseball. This was made in the era when piranha were considered dangerous, and that plays a big part in the film. "Blowhard" (my name for Number 1) likes to feed his piranha. And you can guess what he feeds them. Lots of action, lots of scenery, lots of beautiful women, lots of wit, lots of gadgets. It has everything, which is probably why so many critics are so jealous of it.

Wuchak 6/23/2021 3:58:56 PM 8.4

_**James goes to Japan**_ "You Only Live Twice" (1967) takes agent 007 to Japan where he seeks the secret SPECTRE installation responsible for literally stealing space capsules and threatening war between the USA and USSR. This 5th installment in the franchise upped the ante with the action & spy-stuff and is more dynamic than the previous ones. Speaking of the spy aspects, they're often over-the-top here to the point of being cartoonish. Another reviewer criticized the film in this regard -- pointing out that it was this film more than any other that gave the Austin Powers movies the most material to spoof -- and he was right. One scene, for instance, brought to memory that Gilligan's Island episode where Gilligan had a dream of being Agent 014 (remember the soup spoon?). No wonder the franchise got goofier in the 70s -- it was the next logical step. Disregarding the "Yeah, right" spy shenanigans, "You Only Live Twice" has everything you'd want in a Bond picture -- the action, intrigue, gadgets, beautiful women, spectacular locations and larger-than-life villains. The story is interesting enough that it keeps you absorbed and even builds suspense as the film goes from one action scene to another, culminating in the explosive climax. It was understandably a huge hit in 1967. The film runs 1 hour, 57 minutes, and was shot mostly in Japan, but also England, Spain and Gibraltar. GRADE: A-

2_Fast-22 11/23/2024 11:36:44 AM 8.4

An improvement over Thunderball but still not as good as the original 3 Connery films, it is still very iconic despite it only just having a reappraisal.