You Only Live Twice

Buy This Item You Only Live Twice by MGM (Video & DVD)  Available from Amazon  $7.49  on 9-23-2008     <p>The film boasts the best of the Bond title songs (this one sung on a dreamy track by Nancy Sinatra), but the movie itself is one of the weaker ones of the Sean Connery phase of the 007 franchise. The story concerns an effort by the evil organization SPECTRE to start a world war, but the not-so-super villain behind the plot is the awfully civilized Donald Pleasence. The thin script is by Roald Dahl (shouldn't we have expected a better Bond nemesis from the creator of mad genius <i>Willy Wonka</i>?), and direction is by British veteran Lewis Gilbert (<i>Alfie</i>). But the movie can't hold a candle to <i>Dr. No</i>, <i>From Russia with Love</i>, or <i>Goldfinger</i>. --<i>Tom Keogh</i></p> Reader Reviews 1967's "You Only Live Twice" was Sean Connery's fifth outing as James Bond and his growing disenchantment with the role unfortunately shows through. This movie also marks a decided movement towards increasing implausible story premises and spectacular special effects at the expense of ties to Ian Fleming's original novels. The movie opens up with a pre-credit sequence in which Bond is apparently assassinated, a nice set-up for the outstanding theme song "You Only Live Twice." The actual plot concerns an attempt by the evil SPECTRE organization to start a war between Russia and the US by hijacking their spacecraft in orbit. British Intelligence sends Bond to Japan in search of arch-nemisis Blofeld, where he works closely with his Japanese counterparts, including at least one attractive female agent. Bond and his Japanese allies will ultimately find and assault the SPECTRE headquarters, located in an extinct volcano, in a splashy finale featuring dozens of ninja warriors. This movie never quite hits its stride. Bond seems out of place in Japan. Donald Pleasence's urbane, cat-petting Blofeld is a less than menacing villain, while the special effects seem to be covering for a less than convincing storyline. It all still makes for a good show, highly recommended for fans of the 007 franchise.

You Only Live Twice Available from Amazon Price: $7.49 Updated on 9-23-2008.

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