YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

   Film (1967). Eon/United Artists. Dir Lewis Gilbert, starring Sean Connery, Donald Pleasence, Akiko Wakabayashi, Tetsuro Tamba, Mie Hama. Screenplay Roald DAHL, based very loosely on You Only Live Twice (1964) by Ian FLEMING. 116 mins. Colour.

   Several of Fleming's James Bond novels were TECHNOTHRILLERS, mildly sf-oriented (though set in the present) and sometimes featuring scientist VILLAINS and superweapons. Most of the very popular and long-lasting series of spin-off movies have emphasized - although less so, perhaps, in the mid-1980s - the sf gadgetry, and have often provided at least one major futuristic set: these include DR NO (1962), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), On Her Majesty's SecretService (1969), Diamonds are Forever (1971), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Never Say Never Again (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985) as well as the spoof Casino Royale (1967). Along with MOONRAKER (1979), YOLT contains the most sf hardware. A US satellite is swallowed up by a mystery craft in outer space. The super-criminal organization SPECTRE has constructed a secret rocket base inside a Japanese volcano from which it launches its bizarre vehicle to captureboth US and Russian spacecraft, in an attempt to provoke a war between the two nations. James Bond (Connery), with the help of Japanese secret agents, foils SPECTRE's plans. Despite the spectacular sets - which upstage the humans, even the always-efficient Connery - and vast budget, there are longeurs in pacing and lapses in the special effects.

   JB/PN

   See also: CINEMA.