You Only Live Twice (1967)

You Only Live Twice, Sean Connery’s fifth outing as James Bond, falls under the category of “I love you, but you’re strange.”  Embracing the franchise’s potential for high-octane camp, You Only Live Twice is extremely implausible but entirely entertaining.

After faking his own death (yes, another pre-credits teaser with a presumed-dead 007), Bond hops over to Japan to investigate the mysterious disappearance of an American spaceship.  With the clock ticking amid brewing tensions between the Americans and the Soviets, Bond joins Tiger Tanaka’s secret ninja police in order to infiltrate the secret volcano base where SPECTRE chief Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasance) is hatching a plot for – you guessed it – world domination.

Let’s get the obligatory stuff out of the way – Connery is still the ultimate Bond here, having more fun than he’s ever had in the shoes of the world’s top superspy.  His bemused detachment from the oddity of the plot helps his own credulity as the star, and the droll rapidity with which he fires off those one-liners is captivating.  His opposite number, finally revealed on-screen after five years of teases, is the quintessential iconic Bond villain; Donald Pleasance is a perfect fit for Blofeld, the shadowy supercriminal who’s revealed to be diminutive, weak-voiced, and scarred over his right eye.  In fact, watching You Only Live Twice really gives you a sense of this film’s significance, if only because you recognize all the pieces that have been imitated and parodied:  the volcano base, the hulking blond henchman, and the bald supervillain with a Mao suit, a scar, and a pet cat (see also, Dr. Evil, Dr. Claw).

This movie also has some really great action sequences, including Bond’s some-assembly-required helicopter and the ninja raid on the volcano base.  Even in a smaller piece, when Bond wrestles with a security guard, there’s a callback to Oddjob in Goldfinger that gives the devout fan a comforting sense of familiarity; smaller still, Bond’s pursuit of a mysterious Japanese woman through the side streets of Tokyo is made exciting by the capable direction of Lewis Gilbert.

Before we get to the elephant in the room – the downright ludic weirdness of this movie – there are a few things that don’t work.  For one, the two female leads (Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki and Mie Hama as Kissy) are virtually indistinguishable in that there’s really very little reason to switch characters halfway through the film; indeed, the complex Aki is much more interesting than Kissy, and it’s a loss for the film when she’s replaced by the vapid Kissy.  Worse, the film flirts with “yellowface” when, in a strange and ultimately unnecessary plot point, Bond is obligated to “become” Japanese, change his appearance, and take a Japanese wife.  The Japanese makeup on Connery is entirely unconvincing, rendering him a sort of sunburned Burt Reynolds.

Accentuating the strangeness of You Only Live Twice, the script is written by Roald Dahl – yes, that Roald Dahl, famed for his dark children’s stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Dahl dispenses with much of Ian Fleming’s original (itself more a revenge story than anything else) and opts for what he called a “formula” approach to Bond.  The idea that the series can be reduced to a series of key points and essential beats ought to be discouraging, but the result is something quite smashing – and unexpected from the pen of the man who brought you Matilda.

In fact, that’s a good way to think of You Only Live Twice – full of things that don’t really make much sense but end up working when they’re put together.  It’s not a great Bond film by any stretch, but it’s a successful one in that it never fails to be engaging.  Whether successfully created or absurdly awkward, either way you won’t want to look away from what’s going on.  While some might say this turn toward the irreverent heralds the beginning of the end (remember, the worst excesses of the Roger Moore era are before us), I say enjoy it while it lasts because... well, you know.  “You Only Live Twice, Mr. Bond.”

You Only Live Twice is rated PG.  Bond is involved in some bloodless shootouts with fantastic explosions as well as mild snogging (with bare shoulders and backs visible).  A disconcerting poisoning scene ends with abrupt suffocation, which may trouble some viewers, as may the presence of a tank of man-eating piranhas.

James Bond and The Cinema King will return in a review of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) on June 7, 2013!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

If it's Day Two of Depp Week here on The Cinema King, that means it must be Tuesday. And if you're smelling cocoa beans, don't adjust your set, because that indicates only that we're coming under the chocolate waterfall to the next Depp/Burton collaboration under scrutiny (and a surefire chance for yet another food metaphor) - 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Here Depp plays eccentric recluse and chocolate bar wunderkind Willy Wonka, who for the first time is opening his factory's doors to the five lucky winners of a candy bar contest. Those bearers of the golden tickets - gluttonous Augustus Gloop, uber-competitive Violet Beauregarde, covetous Veruca Salt, media addict Mike Teavee, and good-natured Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore) - are treated to an all-access tour of the factory and all its magical secrets. But as this is a Roald Dahl story, the children's own vices - and the sins of their parents - will prove to be their chocolatey downfall, and the most virtuous of them will be rewarded.

I'll say in honesty that this is not Johnny Depp's finest performance. It's a good turn by him. It's typical Depp - wholly engrossed in the part and just this side of normal. But it's not his best. Comparatively, it's about as good as his turn in Alice in Wonderland. Willy Wonka is good, and there's nothing wrong with him, but it's just that we know Depp is capable of so much more. Of course, there's no other performance in the film that comes close to what Depp's up to (save perhaps Deep Roy, who portrays all the Oompa-Loompas, even the female ones), but Willy Wonka is just good but not great. But then again, even when Johnny Depp "phones it in," it's only the difference between an express train and a bullet train.

But I think the strongest comment I can make in praise of Charlie - and really, I did enjoy it, even after about one or two viewings a year until this most recent one - is that it's leaps and bounds better than its predecessor, 1971's ill-advised Newley/Bricusse musical version, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, led by Gene Wilder. A large part of this is due to the fact that this interpretation - as recognizable as it is as a product of director Burton's unique vision - adheres much closer to Roald Dahl's sensibilities than did the music-and-whimsy Wilder version. As much fun as Wilder was as Wonka (indeed, his version remains definitive in a way that Depp's isn't yet), the fact is that the original movie is a stinker; the acting is lame, the songs lamer, and a corporate espionage plotline shoehorned into the already meandering screenplay. Here the only songs are from Dahl's own book, sung gleefully by the Oompa-Loompas (all voiced by the unequivocal genius and frequent Burton partner Danny Elfman) after each child's inevitable and quasi-grisly exit from the factory; that the songs are all different (one a Brit-pop ballad, another an apparent homage to Queen) and closer to the source material belies a more earnest feel, something I never got from "Pure Imagination" or "I've Got a Golden Ticket" (which I detested so much that I can't be bothered to verify that was the actual title of the song Jack Albertson sang in the 1971 version).

So it sounds good, but the film looks even better, filled with Burton trademark flourishes and near-cameos by Burton regulars Helena Bonham Carter (as Charlie's mother) and Christopher Lee. It's Lee's turn as Wonka's father - dentist Dr. Wilbur Wonka - that's one of the more inspired additions to the film; while Wilbur appears nowhere in the original novels, his addition feels natural and lends a degree of plausibility to the otherwise indulgently kooky Wonka character. It humanizes the character in a way that it's almost impossible to remember that the candy mogul didn't originally have a chocophobic dentist for a father. But this is a movie that would work just as well on "Mute" as it would with the audio on; it's more colorful than a 96-count Crayola box, and it's fluid in a way that recalls the chocolate waterfall at the film's centerpiece.

But I do need to answer the criticism that I've often leveled while invoking this movie's name. I've said before that this film and others suffer from a creative mindset of "These are the story beats we need to hit, so let's keep moving because there's a lot we have to cover." Perhaps it's a casualty of the actual plot of the movie - a tour through certain rooms in which dramatic set pieces occur. But there's never a feel that anything in this movie is not preordained; certainly there are overt implications that Willy Wonka has planned each child's demi-demise, but there's a similar lack of creativity in the screenplay adaptation. Wilbur Wonka aside, it's almost too faithful, slavishly loyal to the source material; there's never a sense, for example, that there are other rooms in the factory beyond the few the kiddies get to see (although we do get shots of other rooms much later in the film). Consequently, it feels almost too generic, as though there are no other alternatives for how this whole thing will shake itself out.

In short, it's better than that other one. It feels pretty close, but it looks vastly different. That's the most critical deviation - the Burton look. And tossing Johnny Depp into the mix never hurt, either.

Hey, look at that. Nary a culinary metaphor in sight. Well done, indeed.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is rated a mere PG "for quirky situations, action and mild language." I'm not even going to pretend I know what that means. It's cartoonish, so the kids can probably handle it.

Depp Week continues into Wednesday with Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but keep your eyes peeled for a special bonus post between now and then, featuring a certain doe-eyed Disney star who's no stranger to this site. Stay tuned!

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Forgive me for having never seen a Wes Anderson movie before Fantastic Mr. Fox, but I think I get the gist. I appreciate Fantastic Mr. Fox for what it is, but I think I get a sense of how fast some of Anderson's themes would get old. As it stands, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a "small doses" film and does a fine job as such.

I love Roald Dahl, almost as much as I love Batman, so I needed to see this movie - especially considering that Matilda is one of my all-time favorite book-to-movie projects. I'm also a big fan of George Clooney, who voices the aforementioned Mr. Fox, an animal version of Danny Ocean off on the biggest heist of his life - robbing local farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean (the latter of which is voiced by Michael Gambon) against the wishes of his reform-minded wife Felicity (Meryl Streep).

I had a little difficulty with the voice cast in this film, mostly because they're SO recognizable; Clooney and Streep have unmatchable (and, if a YouTube search is any proof, inimitable) voices, so it becomes problematic for me to see their voices coming from things that don't resemble them. Similarly, when I listen to Bill Murray, I don't instantly think "badger," but apparently Wes Anderson did. Fortunately this jarring effect is only temporary, and by the end of the film it all feels better.

I like what Anderson & Co. did in terms of expanding the story from Dahl's original book. Here, Anderson's version really imbues each character with an arc and a sense of purpose, and it does so without the audience feeling strongarmed into sympathizing with these creatures. Particularly the Foxes' son Ash (Jason Schwartzman) has a compelling storyline in which he struggles to fit in amid the competition provided by his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson). It's the kind of storyline that could have felt forced or even overplayed, but Fantastic Mr. Fox pulls it off smoothly.

A lot of the film's success is due to its runtime - slightly more than 80 minutes. Short and sweet, Fantastic Mr. Fox doesn't have time to run out of steam. Instead, the focus is on the plot and on the characterization. However, I'm not eager to see more of Anderson's films after this one; themes of alienation, problematic family dynamics, and individuality seem like they'd be overplayed if given more than 80 minutes of consideration. So while I'm happy with Fantastic Mr. Fox - indeed, surprisingly so, since I hadn't expected to enjoy it - I think I'll take Wes Anderson in small doses.
Courtesy of the MPAA, Fantastic Mr. Fox is rated PG "for action, smoking, and slang humor." All of that is just silly business. They do, however, substitute the word "cuss" for almost every swear word imaginable in this film, so think about that when you give the DVD to the kiddies.