You Only Live Twice

In 1967 after the release of Thunderball, Sean Connery had a press conference in which he stated that the next Bond film would be his last, but remember Mr. Connery You Only Live Twice!! This movie is fucking awesome! For the longest time You Only Live Twice was my favorite 007 adventure. Over the last few years my tastes have become a little more refined, but this film is so batshit crazy over the top that i cannot help but keep it in my top 5.

The first thing that i love about this film is the screenplay written by one of my favorite writers, Roald Dahl. That's right, Willy Wonka creator himself! This movie is absolutely out of control. Bond gets killed in the opening sequence. Then soon after his body is buried out to sea, frogmen take his mummified body into a submarine where you learn that M set up the fake death in order to get some of 007's enemies off his back. He is a really popular spy after all.

Throughout the film we see space capsules being hijacked by bigger rocket ships, there is a helicopter that fits in four alligator skin suitcases, there is a sequence where James Bond gets plastic surgery to look Japanese and then there is the grand daddy of all, what the hell moments of all the bond films. SPECTRE is operating out of a HOLLOWED OUT VOLCANO!!

This movie is out of control, but nothing beats James Bond along side an army of Ninjas, fighting a war against hundreds of SPECTRE henchmen.

John Barry's score is amazing and Nancy Sinatra's title song is probably my favorite of the entire series. The movie is directed by Lewis Gilbert who will go on to direct one of my other top five favorite Bond films ten years later.

★ ★ ★ ★½