Diamonds Are Forever

Sean Connery's swansong for the role, at least in an official capacity, completes a sort of trilogy featuring Blofeld as the main antagonist. This time he's played by another different actor, and one who played a different character that was killed by one of Blofeld's henchmen two movies ago, plus there's a bunch of plastic surgery-created clones of him running around, so it's all a bit confusing. The story is about blood diamonds, and of course the villain's plot is more diabolical than simply controlling the market. Probably needless to say, a satellite is involved. Blofeld's main agents throughout the story are a pair of hitmen who go around killing whoever comes in contact with the diamonds and taking them for themselves. Except for James Bond, of course, whom they merely leave to die in fairly easy-to-escape situations despite him being easily the most competent of any of their marks. One of them's just creepy too, not in a good way, just in a can't-act-what-is-this-man-doing-in-films kind of way.

The movie starts off okay, but once they get to Vegas, the story just kind of slows down. Bond does some spying and driving and impersonating and flirting, but for some reason I just wasn't totally into it. Bond only really has one girl as Jill St. John is running around most of the time, which was generally fine by me. There's a chase in a moon buggy and a pair of deadly female henchpeople called Bambi and Thumper. Really a visible increase in silliness in this film besides the absurdity of the evil plot - an elephant wins at a slot machine and dances happily, Bond is able to drive a car through a tight alley by balancing it on two wheels and thanks to a continuity error comes out the other side flipped in the other direction, and John is so unprepared for the recoil of an automatic weapon that it blows her back fifteen feet and off the edge of an oil rig. I also enjoyed how there's a guy there at the rig sitting by a microphone and counting things down, instead of it being automated. As we're entering the 70s, I can see it becoming a series that I can find enjoyment in, but not truly appreciate as films like the earlier Connery ones or the Craig ones.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "Diamonds Are Forever" by Shirley Bassey
Foreign locations: Amsterdam, California, Las Vegas
Bond, James Bond: 1:30
Martini shaken, not stirred: Not ordered
Ladies seduced: 1
Chases: 2
Kills: 7
Non-lethal takedowns: 7

You Only Live Twice

James Bond's descent into silliness was a slow and gradual one. You can see it coming here in the script penned by Roald Dahl which only slightly resembles the original novel, although it's less of a goofy tone here as just fairly outlandish situations. This movie is probably actually the key for Dr. Evil. We finally see Blofeld's face in this one, and he's got the baldness, eye scar, fluffy white cat, and less than threatening voice. Also, he has a secret volcano lair. Which Bond ends up attacking with an army of ninjas led by the chief of the Japanese Secret Service. And to help infiltrate operations beforehand, he gets disguised as a Japanese man by wearing prosthetics on his eyes that don't actually seem to do much and a black wig. And Blofeld uses the volcano lair to launch spaceships that capture other ones in an attempt to trigger World War III on Earth - you know, the planet he lives on. I can't remember if he explained why he wanted to do that.

It's kind of a shame the second half is so ludicrous because I actually really liked the first. There's a good theme song, classic catchphrases are subverted, Bond does some legitimate espionage work. A girl he sleeps with who works for SPECTRE gets dropped in a pool of piranhas after she leaves Bond in an airplane she bails out of. When Bond is being chased at a harbor he makes it to the roof and there's a really cool overhead shot as he is pursued by a bunch of guys and he coldcocks several of them. And the plot really is genuinely intriguing until you figure out what's really going on. The change in setting and characters to predominantly Asian is an interesting one, although apparently responsible for Sean Connery's temporary abdication of the role after he was constantly bothered by the Japanese press during filming. Twice is a flawed movie, though I admit to liking it more than the last one.

James Bond stats
Theme song: "You Only Live Twice" by Nancy Sinatra
Foreign locations: Hong Kong, Japan
Bond, James Bond: Not uttered
Martini shaken, not stirred: 21:55 (backwards)
Ladies seduced: 4
Chases: 2
Kills: 15
Non-lethal takedowns: 16