Moonraker
Cast & Credits:
Actors Characters
Roger Moore James Bond
Lois Chiles Holly Goodhead
Michael Lonsdale Hugo Drax
Richard Kiel Jaws
Directed by Lewis Gilbert
Original Running Time: 2 hours and 6 minutes
At the end of The Spy Who Loved Me, the credits stated that James Bond would return in For Your Eyes Only. After the huge success of the science fiction movie Star Wars, Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli decided to instead make a film based on a different Ian Fleming book all together. He decided to make a film loosely based on Moonraker. Actually, it's very loosely based on Moonraker. Let's put it this way - pretty much the only things that the novel and movie have in common are that they feature James Bond, M, Moneypenny, a villian named Hugo Drax, and both involve something called the Moonraker that is shot into space. The script was to be tailored to try to appeal those that enjoyed Star Wars. The budget was also even bigger than the one for The Spy Who Loved Me. It was in fact larger than the budget for all of the first eight 007 movies put together. How on Earth did they make all of those Connery movies so entertaining without spending all of that money?
After the gun barrel seqence, we see a pilot and co-pilot for the RAF flying a huge jet with a space shuttle called the Moonraker on it's back. Unbeknownst to them, two men are actually hidden away on the space craft and creep out from behind hidden panels into the cockpit. The Moonraker is quickly disengaged and it's thrusters are fired up. Before having time to react, loyal members of the RAF are burnt to a firey crisp. An infernal hell lasting a brief second. This causes M's red telephone to ring. We get to here him say his crowd pleasing "Good God!" before he rings up his loyal secretary Miss Moneypenny and instructs her to get a hold of 007 who happens to be finishing up a mission in Africa. James is actually aboard a plane and finds out lat his lady friend isn't a friend at all. Neither is one of the passengers that tries to push Bond out of the open aircraft door. After a brief tussle, Bond throws his adversary out of the plane. Thankfully, he has a parachute. Immediately Bond is blindsided by a 7 foot 2 inch giant that was hiding in the cockpit. Yep, Jaws is back! He also dives out the plane. By the way, James Bond does not have a parachute. What ensues is a brilliantly executed fight between two sky divers. 007 wrestles away the other man's chute and pulls the string just as the menacing Jaws is about to bite his leg off. Next, Jaws pulls his string too forcefully and snaps it off completely. He then proceeds to flap his arms and try to fly. If the film makers really wanted to sabatoge this stunt, they should have just had the table cloth and plates fly out of Jaws' backpack. Ugh... To make things worse, he falls into the top of a circus tent and the credits show you that he landed into a saftey net. Apparently a model of net has been made the can safely stop the fall of a man that most certainly weighs over 300 lbs from 30,000 feet. Strong stuff that netting is made with. The titles sequence is once again very well done and features naked women flying through the sky like space shuttles. No complaints there. The theme song performed by Shirley Bassey however is decidedly boring and a cure for insomniacs everywhere. John Barry's soundtrack overall is pretty good, though. It's like you're riding on a luxury cruise ship to outer space.
Bond enters M's office and is told about the hijacking of the Moonraker. He is sent off to California to take a closer look at Drax Enterprises where the Moonraker shuttles are made after being equipped with darts that can be shot from the wrist by drawing his hand upward by Q. After being flown in by chopper to the massive Drax estate by the beautiful pilot, Corinne Dufour (Corrine Clery), Bond has a brief discussion with Drax himself. Soon Bond is sent off to meet with rocket scientist Dr. Goodhead. Immediately Drax tells his assistant Chang to kill 007. Wow! That was quick. Immediately Drax outs himself as the bad guy and orders Bond's death before anything like a story has been established or anything like tension has been built. Was this movie written for those with ADD? Bond meets Dr. Goodhead and she happens to be an attractive woman. What else would you expect? She straps him into a centrifugal device that determines how much G-Force he can handle. It has a switch that can stop it immediately before he passes out or even killed. After Dr. Goodhead starts up the device she is called away. Chang tampers with the machine so it won't stop and leaves. Bond shoots a wrist dart into the console in order to get it to stop. What??? The movie just started and he already used the gadget? The best part of the gadgets is the anticipation of when they are going to be used and how. So much for that. That's out of the way.
After bedding Corrine Dufour, 007 searches the Drax estate. He asks her if there's a safe and looks straight at the clock that it's hidden in like an idiot. Bond cracks a couple of bad jokes and opens the safe with a safecracker that looks like a cigarette case. Inside of it are diagrams drawn of a globe that is being made at a place called Venini Glass in Venice. During a pheasant hunt the next day with Hugo Drax, Bond shoots a sniper out a tree and then hands the gun to him before leaving. Why doesn't Drax just shoot him with that gun right there? Why? Instead he fires Ms. Dufour for betraying him and has her killed by his trained dogs. Why wasn't Bond killed by the trained dogs? Why is he in Venice a half second later and coincidently meeting up with Holly Goodhead (who we soon find out is a CIA agent)? Why do I care enough about this movie to write a review about it? *Snap out of it Amp* After a ridiculous chase scene in a gadget full gondola that turns into a hovercraft, Bond goes to Venini glass and investigates. He finds a laboratory where two scientists are putting vials of something dark into tubes that are being loaded into globes looking like the one appearing in the diagram earlier. Bond leaves a vial rushing out in fear of being noticed. It is promptly broken and the scientists quickly die. Curiously the lab animals don't. Hmmm. Then Bond gets into an altercation with Chang while having a vial of the lethal stuff in his pocket. Numerous pricless works of art are destroyed in the process and the way that Bond defeats Chang is only a device to set up a punchline. 007 also sees that crates are being shipped out of Venini glass to a warehouse in Rio. It's a cool thing that Drax has warehouses in such great locations. The gorgeous locales almost cover up the fact that this is a substandard movie. Almost. James also has M take the vial back to be analyzed.
After arriving in RIo, 007 is booked into the Presidential Suite. A beautiful young spy named Manuela is there fixing him a drink. She sleeps with him immediately. Did I mention that ole Rog is starting to look really old and that him with these hot young women is starting to become not only unbelievable, but also creepy? I digress... Before you know it, Bond and Dr. Goodhead are in a cable car up on the beautiful Sugarloaf Mountain. It is stopped and Jaws comes up there to kill them both. After narrowly escaping Jaws, the giant meets a young blonde with pigtails and glasses. They immediately fall in love (I'm not making this up). After another poorly done scene where Bond and Holly are captured briefly, put into an amulance, and escape with unbelievable ease we are "treated" to a scene where James rides up to MI6's hideout in a poncho on a horse while "The Magnificent Seven" theme song is playing. I like the Bond movies to be tongue in cheek, but this is ridiculous and not funny. There we find out that Q branch has laser guns. You heard that right! Laser guns. Now I am willing to suspend my belief in these movies since they are escapist adventures, but come on! Next, Bond learns that what was in the vial is a black orchid that can kill human life, but leaves plants and other animals alive (don't ask me). It is a rare flower that grows only a small river in the Amazon. After being equiped with a mode of transportation by Q he heads there.
James arrives in the Amazon a split second later in movie time in a boat. What follows is boat chase # 3 in the Moore movies. # 4 if you count the gondola incident. It has mines , torpedoes, and everything else that you would expect including a hanglider that Bond uses before going over a waterfall. Oh yeah, that's hanglider scene # 2 in the Moore movies which leads to Jaws somehow surviving certain death for the billionth time. This movie gets zero points for originality. Soon James stumbles upon a lost city which is launching Drax's liftoff site for his Moonrakers. After escaping near death by a boa and exhausts from one of the Moonrakers taking off into space, Bond and Holly sneak aboard one of the the shuttles which is on autopilot. They arrive on a space station with five other Moonrakers. There they learn that Christopher Wood, the man who penned the script for The Spy Who Loved Me was told to write the exact same script for this movie but in outer space instead of under water. Drax has brought a good looking male and female of each race to start a new civilization in space while armageddon happens on Earth. Soon the British and US forces arrive at the space station and a giant laser gun battle takes place. Even less believable is the disservice that is done to Jaws' character. Is this the end of the world as we know it? It could be after over two hours of this...
All right. I'll say some positive things about this film. Director Lewis Gilbert is obviously very talented and all three of the Bond films he directed, You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Moonraker look great. Also, production designer Ken Adam made a wonderful looking looking space shuttle which obviously was inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey. Actually, he worked for Kubrick on several of his movies. Furthermore, Derek Medding's special effects are top notch and hold up suprisingly well today. There is a lot of great window dressing in this movie from the photography, to the sets, to the special effects, to the beautiful locations and women. That's the problem though. All of this is used to cover up the horrible script (things move way too fast and hardly anything happens) and unbelievability of the plot. Also, it seems like they are trying to hide Roger Moore as best as they can which is a shame since I actually rather enjoyed his performance in The Spy Who Loved Me.
1 out of 5 - Poor for a Bond movie. This is my least favorite of the Roger Moore era and definitely the worst official Bond film up until this point. After the huge step forward in the Spy Who Loved Me, the franchise falls even further backward after Moonraker in my opinion. Also, this movie really should have been rated R. R for Ridiculous. But what do I know? This was a massive hit. Even bigger than the last.
Cool thing to know: This was Shirley Bassey's 3rd and final time singing a Bond theme song. The others were Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever.
Another cool thing to know: During Drax's pheasant shoot, horns play the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Also, the code to get into the laboratory is the song from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Not so cool thing: Shortly after Moonraker was finished, Bernard Lee, who played M in every official Bond film up until this point passed away.
James Bond will return next Monday in For Your Eyes Only.
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