Everyone has that one film that they keep on coming on back to just for the sake of sake of watching an enjoyable film. Well then for me the film that i'm about to review for all today is one of those films as this is a film that is just pure fun and is a film that you can put on on a lazy Sunday afternoon and just enjoy it for what it is and so then join me as I review the film that was originally the final ever official James Bond film to feature Sir Sean Connery in the role of James Bond with the film in question being called simply just "You Only Live Twice" enjoy.
The plot of this film is when an American spacecraft is stolen midflight it's up to James Bond to find who stole the spacecraft before the Americans start a war with the Russians. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this film was in all honesty really good with this films plot being really enjoyable and really engaging as well as being really easy to follow along with as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Of course this film features Sir Sean Connery as James Bond , Bernard Lee as M , Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny and Desmond Llewelyn as Q. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with the MI6 regulars turning in some really good performances even if it does feel like the Sean is really just phoning in his whole performance for this whole very film.
Also starring in this film is Tetsurō Tamba as Tiger Tanaka , Robert Rietty as The Voice of Tiger Tanaka and Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki. Also starring in this film is Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki , Nikki Van Der Zyl as The Voice Of Kissy Suzuki , Donald Pleasence as Ernst Stavro Blofeld , Teru Shimada as Mr. Osato , Karin Dor as Helga Brandt , Ronald Rich as Hans , Doctor Who star Frazer Hines as Spectre Number 4 and Charles Gray as Dikko Henderson. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good with all of this films cast members turning in some really good performances even when alot of them are acting against the MI6 regulars which raises the quality of the acting in this film.
This film does feature two Bond Girls with the first one being Aki who was of course played by the seriously stunning Akiko Wakabayashi. I have to admit that out of the two bond girls that this films gives us Aki is quite easily the better of the two as she is the better written character who can actually handle herself in certain situations and actually has a personality where as Kissy is not only not named in the entire movie but also has no personality and so she just comes as a character that is just filling a role that Aki would have played beautifully.
As i've just mentioned this films other bond girl is Kissy Suzuki who is played by the seriously stunning Mie Hama. Again as i've just mentioned I didn't really like this character as she just felt like a pointless character that's not to say that the character was acted bad because she wasn't it's just that the actress is given nothing to work with and that's not helped by the fact that Mie Hama was due to play Aki but had ti switch and play Kissy because she wasn't learning English that quickly which doesn't make sense when you take into account that the role of Kissy was being dubbed anyway and so they could have had play Aki and have Aki being dubbed as well.
This was due to be the final film to feature Sir Sean Connery as James Bond as he did suffer issues on the set. Which culminated in him just walking away from the role which is a shame that he had those issues because he really good in this role and given that he only came back to Diamonds Are Forever because he was getting a huge paycheck and so it's clear to me that he lost his passion for the role when he lost that passion is quite hard to say but if you watch this film and watch his performance it's quite clear that he's no longer passionate about the role that he helped to make famous in the world of cinema.
I'd say that the most popular character in Thunderball was Fiona Volpe and so it boggles my mind that in this film that they would try to replicate the character with Helga Brandt who is played by the seriously stunning Karin Dor. Fiona was a character that was crafted for her actress where as with Helga I got the feeling that they wanted to do Fiona again but they didn't realise that part of what Fiona so memorable and likable in the first place was that her actress Luciana Paluzzi who just oozes chemistry and where as Karin does her best she's not going to top what Luciana Paluzzi did in Thunderball she just isn't.
This film is actually the first James Bond film to feature a wholly original story with this film only borrowing certain characters , location and plot points from the names. This is because Ian Fleming himself didn't like the plot of the book and so when it came to the movie he demanded that they change the plot and with script writer Roald Dahl that's exactly what they set out to do and weather or not they succeeded or not depends on you ad what your tastes are but I give them alot of credit for trying it and that is something that I will always love about this film.
Doing the production design for this film is of course Sir Ken Adam and well i've you've seen any of my reviews for the films that hes worked on then you'll know exactly what i'm about to say next. As I really did like the sets that he created for this film granted alot of the sets that he created for this films weren't as good as the ones that he created for the previous James Bond films but when you see a really impressive set in this film you really do know it with the best example of this being the volcano set which is just so massive and is really visually impressive to look at.
For me this is the best example of a film that you could have on in the background while your of doing other things. As this film is just such an easy watch with the film being a fun filled film that doesn't really require you to think in order to make the film make sense all this film really requires you to do is just sit down and enjoy it and that's really it and while it is good that some films can and do challenge you not every film needs to make you think sometimes just being a fun and brainless film is more then enough and that is something that is most certainly the case with this film.
This film is infamous for it being the film that saw a poor cay get scared on camera and running away and hiding on the films set. This occurred during the films third act where the Ninja's attack Blofeld's base and you can see the exact moment in the film where the cat gets scared this does somewhat hamper my enjoyment of the film just because of the fact that it's something that could have been avoided by not having the cat be present in the scene or by getting the cat used t what it was that it was about to hear but the fact that the makers chose none of those options doesn't paint the production in a positive light.
On the flip side of that this film is also famous for being the first time that we see all of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. With character only previously being seen from the neck down and I have to say that this version of the character is so well done as he's someone who is always the smartest person in the room and he knows what he wants and how to get it which is something that alot of other versions seem to be lacking and where you pair that u with the great Donald Pleasence you end up with a take on the character that was so popular that he was and still is in some cases getting spoofed all of the time in various forms of media.
The title song for this film is also called "You Only Live Twice" and was really well sung by singer Nancy Sinatra. As I just said this sung is really well sung with this song being one of the most well known James Bond theme songs out there and alot of that comes down to the fact that Nancy Sinatra really was that great of singer and the fact that she was nervous while recording this song is something that really doesn't shine through in the final product I only wish that the song was better written as the writing for the song was rather bland and generic with the song not really touching upon on the themes present in the actual film itself.
Doing this films opening titles is of course Maurice Binder and I have to say that I really did like the titles that he created for this film. As this films titles did a great job of not only being very visually interesting to look at but where also very well done with this films opening titles having the theme of volcano's which was something that I really did like even tho for obvious reasons they volcano's looked rather fake when the text and other footage was put on top of them but given that it would be insane to ask anybody to film an active volcano erupting I think that we can let this one little issue as it doesn't take away from these opening titles.
If there's one major issue to be had with this film it's the fact that James Bond didn't need to fake his own death at the start of this movie. As regardless of if he faked his own death or not the plot of the film plays out the exact same way with SPECTRE not even knowing that James Bond wasn't killed of in the first place and so it makes me wonder if there was another reason as to why the character faked his own death but it was cut from the final cut of the film as it's something that while not really effecting the plot of the film does cause the audience to scratch our head and wonder if it was something that really needed to happen in the first place.
Now then while I cannot for the absolutely life of me remember whatever this films running time even was but I do know that for a fact that this film has / had an exact grand total running time of roughly one hour and fifty minuets. Which was the bog standard running time for alot of these early James Bond films however tho this film really does suffer for having such a short amount of running time as alot of the characters that we are meant to care about can't be fully developed as the film has to rush along to it's next plot point but I will admit tho that if this film did have a slightly longer running time then it might mess up with this film s really good pacing.
So now then since this is an action film that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty really good. With all of this films action being very well done and being really exciting and you can just tell that it's during these action scenes that Sean was quite clearly having the time of his life and that is something that only serves to make this films many action all the more better in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this film is quite easily becoming a favorite of mine to watch as it really is just a fun film that doesn't require you to think but at the same time tho this film does have quite alot issues in it tho which are for the most part fairly hard to ignore in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film n this very review and as such that means that this very film earns itself a grand old score of exactly a 7.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this review from Wikipedia , the official James Bond fandom wiki page and Google Images. With my personal favorite website to use to get the images that I used in this very review being the official James Bond fandom wiki page just simply due to the fact that pretty much all of the images that are featured / presented to us and are currently up and also on the official James Bond fandom wiki page are all fairly high quality and as well as being fairly high definition and well then boys and girls just freaking like James Bond I will return.
Comments
Post a Comment