Thursday, May 22, 2014

YOLT - the "commentary"

I now present a "review" of You Only Live Twice, presented through the lens of petty abuse and a crude synopsis.

BRN-uh! BUN! BRN-uh! BUN! It's black and white again after a bold blue-tinged Thunderbarrel. On the plus side, it's just the Thunderball gunbarrel in black and white; they haven't gone back to Bob Simmons, because heavens forfend anyone get the slightest hint of an inkling that anyone other than SEAN CONNERY will be playing Bond forevermore (spoiler alert: he won't, and everyone involved in the making of this film knew perfectly well he was on his way out. SEAN CONNERY IS JAMES BOND might not be the best ad campaign under those circumstances, just maybe).

Space. The fifth frontier. Previously we've had An Island, the Soviet Border, A Golf Course and Hicksville USA, and Underwater. Yup, after "Space" we've basically exhausted all the locales on Earth. Better make this a good one then, because we'll have to fire Connery in order to free up enough of a budget to go to Mars, and then we'll use that money to actually write a decent script instead, so we'll have to set it in Switzerland. (And once that's done we'll have to invent names for locations. San Monique. Isthmus. Skyfall.)

We're off to a promising start with effects Doctor Who would regenerate for.  One spaceship eats another (still not the most daft thing we've seen in a Bond teaser yet: that would be the heroin-flavored bananas in Goldfinger) while various people squawk on the radio. Five films in and the franchise is still showing us brand new things. It's so creative, in fact, that it's not even in the book! Definitely a sign of the shape of things to come.

By the way that was Shane Rimmer in the background of one of the ground control sets, trying and failing to get in touch with Major Tom. Having lost a space capsule they'll put him in command of a nuclear submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me, and let's see if he does a better job keeping it out of enemy hands (spoiler: no).

The next scene is set in one of Epcot's golf balls and features a bunch of pretentious a-holes arguing about whodunnit.  Naturally The Britishe One is the source of reason - this is nominally a British film series, after all, even if the star is Scottish and the producers American, and most of the cast of this one have unpronounceable names and I don't mean Welsh ones.


BondJamesBond is making out with a chick. If Casino Royale's a prequel, he's met her once before and she's got a Benjamin Button thing going on; what a clever way to deflect the criticism that Bond's shagging girls ten years younger than him.  It only took 40 years for anyone to catch on.

There's some brimble about duck - Sean, you've had quite enough, dear - and then two people pump bullets at a wall after some film is run backwards. Then there's a cameo by a guy named Roger who will be immensely popular in a few years due to his involvement in something British and special and extraordinarily colorful. Delgado, not Moore. (It's actually Anthony Ainley, shush, I know.)

Titles!  Red and bold and Nancy Sinatra! These volcanoes were made for spoilin'. Unfortunately, lava fails to compare with the opening credits of Goldfinger, which had - gloriously, brazenly, impossibly irreverently inappropriately - a golf ball putted into a golden chick's cleavage. Spurty lava just can't compare.

SEAN CONNERY in Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice. What a lie. Quantum of Solace is (marginally) closer to Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice than the film Albert and Harry are serving us. (Bond out to revenge a loved one, revenge ultimately unsatisfying, Bond makes the bad guy's lair go explodey at the end.)  At least it doesn't try to claim that SEAN CONNERY is Ian Fleming's James Bond, although that's less a condemnation of him than it is of the audience's reaction when Ian Fleming's James Bond (Dalton) finally graced us with his presence (actually, true story, Ian Fleming's James Bond was David Niven, who got a shoutout in this very novel and who played James Bond this very year. Erp).  SEAN CONNERY is what you're here to see, not Ian Fleming's James Bond, so oopsie when they have to replace him.

SEAN CONNERY is followed by a bunch of names nobody recognizes (George Lazerbee or something), one of whom is secretly a werewolf, and then the usual band of Lee, Llewellyn and Maxwell - that famous group of solicitors, pouring over 007's expense accounts and his car repair bills and setting up the usual awful puns, but worse - much worse in the case of Llewellyn, who survived all the way until BrosBond made Christmas come more than once a year. Charles Gray, CampFeld, showing up two films early. Yikes.  And Donald Pleasance. "And" Donald Pleasance. Wonder what Big Name Role could have netted the actor an "And."

And love is a stranger who beckons you on. Interesting imagery, but it doesn't tie in at all to the "plot."  This dream is for you, so pay the price and never show us the parts of Japan that got atomized (dearie me, Anglo protagonist chases a ghost around postwar wreckage, obviously out of his depth, villain turns up at the end and steals the show - no, just as well they didn't "adapt" Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, might look a bit like The Third Man, like the man says, in Japan they got nuked back to the stone age but then they gave us the Nintendo - only good for GoldenEye, apparently - and human-ish sexbots.  You can see them in more than one Bond Film; they're called "Bond Girls").

The two-hour travelogue and tourist film you just bought was photographed by Freddie Young, and yes sir it is gorgeous.  It was directed by Lewis Gilbert, who will gleefully rip himself off twice at the end of the 70s.

And we're back. Apparently MI6 is staging an elaborate charade to make it look like James Bond died. Guess that means he'll need a new code name, maybe a new face to go with it. Roger Moore? Please; something vaguely realistic-sounding.  Nobody seems to have noticed that they've given him a waterproof bag and a breathing apparatus underneath those mummy bandages. Begs the question of why they dumped him overboard at all if they weren't showing the body to "the public." Guess so we can put James Bond on the screen for another minute without having to pay Sean Connery. Imagine that's starting to cost a pretty penny, and in this film I'm not convinced they got what they paid for. Ugh, underwater. Coming to this straight from Thunderblubber I've had enough underwater sequences to last me until The Spy Who Loved Me.

"Permission to come aboard, sir?" No, denied. Back out into the watery murk with you. At least until you've swum enough to slim down and convince me that that really was you in the mummywrap a moment ago. Oh, and because you came aboard (not a euphemism) before asking permission to come aboard (still not a euphemism, no matter how long and hard and full o' seamen your vessel is), we're never going to tell you Bikini Suzuki's real name (Nyota), so there.

Bond gets his mission brief from M inside a submarine. Because OF COURSE he does, we're five films in and we need something new and different to keep the chowderhead audience entertained, although under that logic On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the most successful Bond film ever made. Whence this George bloke? We came for SEAN CONNERY, you've been advertising him in the last two films, not this Bond character.

Get your breathing gear back on, Jimmy - after a gag about studying at Cambridge, ho ho, Cambridge Five, Bond Film attempting to be topical and nobody getting it forty years later - what are you going to do in the next one, Peel Emma out of that catsuit? Careful with that Axe, Eugene; she's more like to be the culprit than the victim in post-wedding murders these days.

Bond gets shot out to sea, again. Splurt. Visual metaphor.  Wait, I thought "Our best man" was working on it before he faked his death. Why'd he need M to brief him (again)?  Boggled.

BondJamesBond running around Downtown Tokyo. At least it's not as insane as The World Is Not Enough - look, faked my death, now to immediately get on the radio and use my real name. Not convinced that music played on Eastern-sounding instruments automatically makes it Eastern. And the first person to wear a bikini here is a fat sumo wrestler. Bring back Ursula Andress, stop DOING IT DIFFERENTLY, how dare you!

Lovely bit of skirt, Aki No Last Name.  Aki Notinthebook.  Aki Sacrificiallamb. Aki Mostcompetentbondgirltodatesoofcourseshesgottadie.  Ah yes, that was it.  I love you.  I have a car nearby.  How awkward if she wasn't the contact, a whole different manner of contact would have been made, fnar.  I take you to Mr. Henderson.  Serves basically the same purpose in the book, getting Bond (somewhat) into contact with Tiger the Japanese M.  It's Blofeld! The gay one! Yes, smash him in the leg. Then smash him in the other leg just for good measure! And one more for "stirred, not shaken."  Funny how seasoned MI6 agents have a tendency to oblige their killers the moment Bond shows up.  I'm going to go stand over by this wall now, no reason, and then I shall explain the vitally important-

Almost as daft as the killer butterfly in A View to a Kill. Almost.

Come to think of it - actor who "defined" Bond for a generation putting in (what he thinks is) his curtain call, two of his associates are murdered in improbably bizarre circumstances, the first is improbably bizarre to begin with but the second is genuinely missed, while the villain is utterly bonkers... at least nobody swan-dives off the Eiffel Tower in this one.

Bond comes up with a daring plan on the fly, a plan that involves the baddie being a clueless idiot. Oh, look, it's Licence to Kill, how original. Then Bond smacks up an office but it's all pristine come tomorrow, and now Moonraker's on the line too. Fights are starting to get a bit limp, it must be said. Even Peter Hunt's schizo editing booth can't hide Connery's waistline (although the costumes can, at least until they put him in a ninja's jumpsuit).  If only he'd edited it like the Bournes, all shaky-cam and opaque. No, wait, that way lies Quantum of Solace. Quantum of Solace with a more static Bond (in the sense that his character never changes, not in the sense that he never moves very fast) would have been downright terrible. Oh wait, it was, wasn't it?

Curious sound effects as the bullets begin to fly, every shot is a ricochet, here comes a roaring car engine when (true story) it's actually being pulled by stuntmen as Aki's aktress doesn't have a licence.  ConBond is suspicious; in fairness to him, look how things turned out last time he bummed a lift from a hot chick.

This next bit coming up with Tiger is actually quite delicious. Not the dry waterslide, which is patently the daftest thing in any Bond film yet (it holds that honor for less than an hour, because reminder: Hollowed. Out. Volcano. Lair).  No, rather the notion that he rides around Japan in his own private subway car. While that is an appropriately goofy exaggeration of Ian Fleming's Tanaka-san, I do hope Mr. Silva never stages a chase down here.

Bond turns down yet another "proper" vodka martini. I am beginning to suspect that James Bond was killed in the opening, and that this imposter is one of those sex-bots I done mentioned before.  As far as a SEAN CONNERY impersonator it's more convincing than the line of Aussie yahoos, dapper grandpas, Shakespearian actors, vat-grown hairdos and blond hulks they'll have succeed (never replace) him, but I don't for one second believe it's BondJamesBond. (Come to think of it, Roger Moore never ordered a martini "shaken not stirred" either.) I shall appropriate his pseudonym and call him MistaFischa until I either forget or get bored.

MistaFischa returns to Osato Chemicals because this is a Lewis Gilbert film and posing as someone interested in the villain's business (instead of interested merely in gadetry and sex - and never the twain shall meet) is what Bond does in Lewis Gilbert films.  Mr. Osato believes in a healthy chest. Thanks, NotFiona. Let's see, evil redhead who sleeps with Bond and then tries to kill him... yes, you're hardly a three-dimensional character. Aside from your healthy chest, that is.

"Kill him," barks Mr. Osato, before MistaFischa has even left the room. Gotten a bit hard of hearing, have we, Jimmy? Puncture an eardrum doing all that underwater mucking-about?  Fortunately, Aki and her team of stunt car-pullers arrive to save Bond's ass again. No wonder Lewis Gilbert merrily plundered from himself in future films; even You Only Live Twice rips You Only Live Twice off.

One element from this film that is depressingly lacking in subsequent knockoffs is the next scene, wherein a helicopter picks up a car via FRICKIN GIANT MAGNET and drops in 40 million feet into the ocean.  Subtle. They have finally outdone the scrapyard scene in Goldfinger for Most Ridiculous Way To Demolish A Vehicle.  (Off the top of my head, this remains the definitive entry until Vaporized By Reflected Sunlight in The Man With the Golden Gun, itself quickly surpassed by Torn Apart By Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me.)

Then it's off to the Kobe Docks and OH MY GOD THIS WAS NOT IN THE BOOKS NONE OF THIS IS IN THE BOOKS WHO IS THIS AKI PERSON JAMES BOND IS RUINED FOREVER. Last time around we had Fiona Volpe, an entirely new cinematic creation. This time around: Blofeld's the baddie, it's set in Japan, and there are piranhas, maybe. They used about as much of the source material as Thunderbawl added to it.

Fight scene, because apparently Giant Frickin' Magnets are not enough to keep ye popcorn-munching dullards entertained.  Randomly, there's an epic tracking shot from a helicopter as James Bond - totally Sean Connery hisself there, yessir - runs across a rooftop and flings a beam of some sort at some henchmen. Then a stuntman dives off a roof and tumbles behind some crates, and Sean Connery pops up behind them. Beautiful tactic there, Sean, getting them to chase your stunt double, but don't you think you'd have been better served by hightailing it out of there in the meantime?

Oh, wait, he deliberately got captured so he could mack on NotFionaVolpe. Okay, so basically everything that happened since he left Osato Chemicals was superfluous frippery.  Oi, MistaFischa, maybe not slice that dress to ribbons, bet it was expensive. Not sure where she puts her wardrobe; it's probably torture tools all the way down.

Explosive lipstick. The hell come Anya didn't have explosive lipstick? Hypothesis: only girls who die are allowed to come within a football field (note for foreigners: I don't mean soccer) of Bond's arsenal/awesomeness.

Well, hrm, a bit of aerial derring-do, crowd-pleasing, time-marking, but acceptable. And now for more of the same. Hi, Q.  There's an age limit on shorts, I'll have you know. For your thighs only.

Little Nellie. Not sure where he stores a) the ammo, and b) more importantly, the fuel.  Runs on moxie, that must be it.  Having gotten his brand new toy, he must now show it off. How very... formulaic. Normally there's an hour or two in between the introduction of the Implausibly Cool Gadget and its Implausibly Convenient Use, but there's no time for that here; after all, YOLO. ...no, wait, that can't be right.

Those flamethrowers, though. Assuming the other pilots were in any way armed or worth a damn, I can't imagine Bond actually getting close enough to use them. Ah well, live and let fry. Fry another day? Please God, no. It burns and it leaves permanent scars, and the movie's pretty awful too.

Those sneaky f*ckin' Russians have stolen our Titan missiles and are using one to launch their space capsule. Also, their launch zone has palm trees. ...curious.  Yes, the same people who threw in a Cambridge Five joke don't expect us to know jack about either the space race or geography.  I do love the lack of subtitles, although it was probably done to prevent anyone from having to write the same set of dialogue from the beginning, only slightly different. No, wait, every Bond film ever is "the same, only slightly different," so that can't be it.

The rocket comes down, erp, maybe should have asked the Doctor Who team for help on this one. Makes a three-point landing inside a Hollowed. Out. Volcano. Lair. If you can tell which bits are miniature and which is the real set, more power to you, because Ken Adam is a f*cking wizard.

Hrm, dearie, Blofeld's lost that deep, compelling voice he had in his last two outings. I guess there's no point competing with SEAN CONNERY for baritone power, but that's no excuse to hit the helium. Keeping the cosmonauts alive, don't know why, he's planning on blowing up the capsule with his own men aboard later, and he didn't give a damn about that American spacewalker. Book!Blofeld survives two different complete annihilations of SPECTRE and rebuilds it from scratch both times, but even he wasn't quite this careless about the lives of his underlings/victims. At least until You Only Live Twice, hrm, where he's quite bonkers, also hrm, might be a tad more of Fleming's novel here than I thought.

Osato and Number Eleven, report to the principal's office. You failed to kill Bond. Osato knows that the buck stops somewhere over there and drops the hammer on Number 11. Does she have a name? That's okay, neither does Bikini Suzuki. #11 gets dumped in a tank of mutated ill-tempered sea bass, hooray.

And now we're back from outer space and Aki gets some Bonding time.  The scene where she swaps places with the masseuse is curiously adorable.  Then we're off to what Tiger insists is a ninja training camp, but it patently can't be because they're all running around screaming. Also where is the scene where the guys clamber up a wall? That was an essential part of the novel JAMES BOND IS RUINED FOREVER.  The "modern ninjas" are guys with guns. Some of which are rocket guns, and at least one of which is golden. Clever foreshadowing inasmuch as The Man With the Golden Gun is the next book after this one. We never get to see a rocket gun in action, though. Hey, Tiger, instead of shiguning Blofeld (technical term) at the end, why don't you rocket gun him? Blofeld DIES in the novel, after all. Granted, killing Blofeld here would make On Her Maj unfilmable, and doubtless some philistines wish it were.  This film was patently made for them, so I hope they like it.

So the plan is for a 6'1" Scot who bungled an English accent five years ago to pretend to be Japanese? Not convinced Tiger is the head of the Japanese Secret Service. He's probably just in charge of the Shadow SPECTRE, you know, independent organization headed by a nutball with unlimited resources and an army of loyal mooks except for one - there's always one - who's a no-good boogerhead. SeanConBond finds this out when he almost gets skewered during a "training" sequence. Rather than interrogate the bugger he just flat out kills him. Er, this film has more in common with Quantum of Solace than I gave it credit for.

Bond and Aki finally do the horizontal tango, and now that her purpose has been fulfilled she leaves this "adaptation" as awkwardly as she entered it. Yes, dear, put your mouth right there (fnar). By no means should Blofeld's ninja (a proper ninja, knows about stealth and all - hey wait BookBlofeld knows nothing of the ninja and this is WRONG THEY HAVE GOTTEN IT WRONG EVEN MORE) attempt to drop down on top of Bond and knife him to death (because James Bond can't fathom being the one on the bottom and has a reflex, even when asleep, to avert that. Watch Rog consciously switch that reflex off in A View to a Kill; then find the brain bleach).

Wedding! What was this "married only once" crap that Anya and Felix go on about subsequently? Doesn't count because he gave a false name to the priest? I'm reasonably sure "James Bond" is a codename, stole it from a bird-watcher (fnar), and Tracy's buried under it. Buried under the name "Teresa Bond," in fact, and didn't she hate the name Teresa? Maybe that's why Bond never asked Bikini Suzuki hers. Can't be bothered to get it right.

Wandering around the Ama Girl Island, kind of because. See Bikini Suzuki's place. Does it have running water? Not sure the shack in Tundraball did. Then again, we've seen bathrooms in three of the twenty-three Bond flicks, whereas we've seen helicopters in all but two. Clearly this is a world where wingless air transport is more important than sanitation.

Oops, turns out Dr. Evil's Secret Volcano Lair is on the mainland. Er, main Japan. That thing. Wonderful waste of time. Got to see some pretty sights, sort of (they were prettier in the book, if you catch my drift. If you don't, they were naked).

Off to go investigate a hidden tunnel. Poison gas. Blofeld commits a classic error here. Have you ever heard of carbon monoxide? It's colorless and odorless. Bond's notwife will never know what hit her. Over the edge they go, which is a bit less silly than that time SeanConBond's son Indiana Jones manages to escape from a burning lake of oil by swimming beneath the surface. On the plus side, it scrubs off Bond's yellowface. I think. It also raises the question of how Bikini Suzuki manages to get herself submerged, being made of wood and all.

They hike up the mountainside, but Bikini Suzuki - an agent trained by Tiger Tanaka and having the distinct advantage of not recently subsisting on a diet of sake and cigarettes (book reference) - is poohed out and needs a rest.  Good thing she didn't spend all last night Bonding or she wouldn't have even made it this far.

Blofeld has a helicopter fly into his volcano lair - patently hommaged in Licence to Kill and the ridiculous inverse trapdoor in the whatever temple that was supposed to be.  Now Bond knows how to get in, and has an opportunity to do so. No, Bikini, you go back and warn Tiger.  Lewis Gilbert always brings the cavalry to his Bond films, have you noticed?

And monorails. Moonraker might have borrowed the rocketry from this film but it really lacked the monorails. No good lair should be without them, I don't care if that lair is in a volcano, out at sea, or at a Lagranian point (look it up). Bond finds - conveniently easy - the cell with the three astro/cosmonauts who have -conveniently - been left alive, and also - conveniently - it is right next door to the space suit fitting room, and the space suits - conveniently but also realistically - do a good job hiding the features. Betcha can't see a thing in those helmets, though.

Not entirely sure what Bond's plan is at this juncture. Get in the rocket - why? Is he going to overpower the other guy? Might end up crashing the thing. Not sure James Bond has a PhD in astrophysics. Also, at least until Daniel Craig comes along, he's too tall to be an astronaut. Take that, Moonraker!

Bit of a fruffery (technical term) here with BondJamesBond entering the capsule with his cooling unit. Not sure if he grabbed the wrong thing or he didn't hand it off to a subservient lackey, and at the end of the day I guess it doesn't really matter but James Bond Screwed Up And I Wish To Know How.

Hans - must have an ex-Nazi minion, because SPECTRE is just an embarassing offshoot of HYDRA, right down to the logo, overseen by a short guy with a funny voice who disappeared in the 70s - throws his hip in the way so that ConnerBond can't see Number One's face. Begs the question of exactly what Number One is looking at right now, dunnit.  Not sure World Devastation For Fun and Profit is as awesome as it's supposed to be, if you have to watch your henchbeing's muscled bum while you trash-talk a flabby Scotsman pretending to be Japanese despite patently being too tall and unable to bother with (either of) the accent(s).

Seriously, who put SEAN CONNERY in that ninja suit? Roger Moore at least managed to smuggle his corsets under his suit jackets in his later films. Called them "waistcoats" and amazingly they caught on despite the series being stuck up a creative doldrums by that point.

Oh, oh dear. Number One has nudged Hans out of the way, and he's Dr. Evil! And he's not killing Bond, no siree, he's offering to let Bond watch TV. What a nice man. M never let me watch TV. Though I do have to wonder where they're getting that image of their own rocket from. (Osato! Bring me the videocassette of You Only Live Twice the movie!)

I also have to wonder: who is behind these attempts to blind the SPECTRE higher-ups? Blofeld has a magnificently ludicrous scar and Largo had an eyepatch.  Come to think of it, these early films feature a lot of disabilities: artificial hands. Mute. Artificial leg. Inability to act.

Speaking of that last, now it is time for some high-falutin' troopery.  Whillickers!  Somehow Bikini Suzuki and Jap M have found themselves surrounded by ninjas, ninjas that Bikini has led there - how did that work? Did they teleport? This conflomegranate got hommaged in The Living Daylights when DaltBond ran into NotAlQaeda outside the Soviet airbase, cunningly disguised as rocks (itself hommaged in the second Lord of the Rings film, when Frodo and Sean Astin and pre-super-serum Steve Rogers are all at the Black Gate).

Fortunately they're Jap M's ninjas (ninjae) and so the assault on the bottom of the old well can proceed unabated. Something curious happens in the forthcoming scene. No, not Blofeld's cat suddenly desperately trying to escape, that has a perfectly reasonable explanation: the full moon had been shining down on that volcano set a few moments previously and Bert Kwouk, in addition to being Britishe Entertainment's ethic-stereotype-in-residence, is also a werewolf.

No, I speak instead of the curious bomb that one of the ninjae is carrying, the one that only works if you stick it to something else. Just putting it on top of the artificial lake obviously wouldn't have worked, or he woulda gone done that. (An alternate theory: Tiger padded his ranks with ex-kamikazes, and the bulletfest in the crater was his way of giving them an honorable death.)

Meanwhile, inside stock footage of the Pentagon, the guy British Entertainment trots out whenever they need an American tells some Pentagon brass that Blofeld's rocket is on "the same orbit" as theirs and closing fast. This, as anyone with even a fraction of an understanding of orbital mechanics can tell you, is strictly impossible.

Dr. Evil tells his minions a) to give Bond a smoke and b) to blow up the rocket, just like so, once the job is done. Not convinced Bond isn't a HYDRA agent and all of this is just a double-bluff to make the crusty geezers back on the sub trust him a little bit more. To what end? So he can be sexist and racist and alcoholic on the taxpayers' dime, the commie, and also so he can turn into Roger Moore and save the USSR a lot. Presumably Moore's facelift in A View to a Kill is just stage one of the plastic surgery that will enable CommieBond to vanish. Guarantee you he didn't regenerate into Dalton, despite his reluctance to cap a KGB director.  CommieBond may be a master of disguise (doubtful) but he couldn't play Dalton; exhibit A is For Your Eyes Only.

The inevitable happens. Bond doesn't like what he's seeing on TV and blows it up. I don't think I'd have made it very far into this most recent season of Doctor Who before I bankrupted myself if I behaved similarly. BondSmash! (SeanSmash?)

Blofeld's holding Bond at gunpoint now, good... hang on, gotta put the cat down.  I guess it's allergic to guns. And also it apparently contains Blofeld's brain, as now he's gone and shot that elderly Japanese guy who hasn't done squat since the second act.  And then it disappears, maybe to spare itself the embarassment of having to watch Blofeld put off killing Bond YET AGAIN until such time as Jap M is in a position to rescue him.

"There must be another way into that control room." Gee, you mean the way you just came out?  No?  Obviously you don't, because what follows is a long cool shot of you making your way across the battlefield - no, you twerp, don't take cover behind those barrels. If there's one thing I've learned from shooty computer games, barrels always explode.

I do have to ask why Hitler Youth Boy is hanging around an explodey control room. He's supposed to go blow up the rocket afterwards, right? (Why? Why didn't Blofeld just shoot down the other space capsules? Seems easier.) Anyway he ultimately loses a fight with TotallyNotSeanConnery'sStuntDouble and then RocketGoBoom and VolcanoAlsoGoBoom... eeeeeeeeeh.

Hrm. In Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice, there was indeed a volcanic eruption and the book did in fact end with Bond in the middle of the sea. About as on-point as as "Pierce Brosnan as Ian Fleming's James Bond 007," all things considered.

I should point out that I chose to do a full-length snarktastic synopsis of this particular Bond Film because it's so stonking bonkers. I can't imagine trying something similar with, say, From Russia With Love or The Living Daylights. OHMSS or TWINE? Maybe. I feel like The Spy Who Loved Me would just devolve into a series of attacks on Barbara Bach's "acting," and For Your Eyes Only or Skyfall would test the number of different ways I can say "this is really tonally schizophrenic" without repeating myself. I'd be quite tempted to lay into Diamonds Are Forever the way Connery and Moore laid into pork pies towards the end of their tenures, but my sis seems to have misplaced the DVD and I can't be assed to shell out $5 for another copy. Can you really blame me?

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