007 Moonraker "I think he's attempting re-entry, sir!"

Well its time for another post just before the end of the month and I thought I would do another review on a James Bond film and this one will be on Roger Moore's 4th JB film, Moonraker.  So let's get on the spacesuit, fly out and give this one a closer inspection....

So the story begins with the hijack of a space shuttle, owned by Drax industries, on loan to the United Kingdom and James Bond (Rog) is assigned to investigate.  Bond goes to Drax industries manufacturing complex where he meets with the owner, Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) and also a female astronaut, Doctor Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles).  Goodhead shows Bond a centrifuge chamber (used for training astronauts into acclimatising themselves towards tolerating G-force they will encounter during space travel) and encourages him to give it a try.  However whilst Bond is in the chamber, one of Drax's men, Chang (Toshiro Shuga) attempts to kill him by raising the speed of it to an extreme level, causing Bond to nearly pass out, but he saves himself by using a special dart fired from his gadget wrist gun to sabotage the controls.  Bond later is assisted by Drax's personal pilot, Corinne Dufour (Corinne Clery) who helps him find blueprints for a glass vial made in Venice, however Drax later finds out (as Chang spied on them) and has Corinne killed for helping Bond.  Bond later on meets Goodhead again in Venice but he is then chased by Drax's henchmen through the canals but he manages to evade them.

Bond later while in Venice also discovers a secrety laboratory and learns that the vials contains a poisonous gas which is deadly to humans, but harmless to animals.  Bond then confronts Chang for a fight but Bond ends up killing Chang after he falls through a piano and Bond soon discovers that Drax is moving his operation to Rio De Janeiro.  Bond then heads back to MI6 with a glass vial he preserved and has it analysed and M (Bernard Lee) gives Bond permission to travel to Rio to investigate further.  Bond then soon encounters Jaws (Richard Kiel) a seven foot steel toothed henchman (who Bond had previously encountered in The Spy Who Loved Me) in Rio as he reunites with Goodhead, Jaws attacks them on a cable car but Bond and Goodhead manage to escape and Jaws's car crashes and he is rescued by a girl named Dolly (Blanche Ravalec) and they both fall in love at first sight with one another.  Bond and Goodhead are then captured by henchmen but Bond fights them off and they escape and he reports to the MI6 base in Brazil and he learns that the toxin found in the vials is from a rare orchid found in the Amazon jungle.

Bond travels to the Amazon but is yet again captured by Jaws and taken to Drax who is preparing to launch four Moonraker shuttles, and he tells Bond that the one that was hijacked (at the start of the film) was due to another of the shuttles having developed a fault and he needed a replacement.  Bond and Goodhead are then placed in an isolated chamber where Drax awaits to have them killed by the exhaust blast of one of the Moonraker's on take-off, but Bond and Goodhead escape and pose themselves as pilots of one of the shuttles and they follow the other shuttles to a large space station.  Once aboard the station, Jaws captures Bond and Goodhead and takes them to Drax (again!) who explains he intends to kill the human population on Earth by launching 50 globes containing the lethal nerve gas.  And from here it is up to Bond to try and stop Drax from carrying out his nefarious plan......

While it doesn't rank as one of the strongest Bond films, Moonraker is still an entertaining albeit very very cheesy film, which features enough fun moments and good action scenes to keep the viewer amused.  After the success of Star Wars, Moonraker appeared to be the most logical (or illogical depending on how you view it!) choice to do for a Bond film, although it was of course one of the novels written by Ian Fleming.  The film also featured some very impressive visual effects work from miniature specialist, Derek Meddings who provided some great model work for the space shuttle and station sequences.  And in the spirit of sci-fi parodies the film even pokes fun at Steven Spielberg's Close encounters of the third kind as shown in the scene where Bond sneaks into Drax's laboratory and a scientist enters a five digit code which features the musical notes featured in the film!  Overall however the film itself did received mixed reviews from the critics and I will give my views on it myself in a bit.

Meanwhile moving onto the performances things are not too bad here as Roger Moore again provides another amusing and charismatic performance as James Bond and here he gives us the usual raised eyebrows, glib one-liners and shows again his ability at handling the action scenes well.  Roger also get's some fun lines of dialogue in the film and scenes such as the scene where he fights Chang, Drax's bodyguard, who ends up being killed after he crashes through a piano and Bond looks down and says "Play it again, Sam!".  Also there is the scene where Bond survives another attempt made on his life while he is out shooting pheasants with Drax, Bond fires his gun up at the trees and Drax says "You missed, Mr Bond!" and next thing we see is a sniper fall out of a tree, dead, and Bond says "Did I???".  Then there is the scene where Bond confronts Jaws again on the cable cars as Goodhead and Bond see Jaws approach them on another cable car heading toward them, Goodhead asks Bond does he know Jaws and Bond replies "Not socially!  His name is Jaws, he kills people!".  Then there is the ridiculous scene where Bond while in the Amazon jungle arrives at Drax's base there and he falls into a pool of water where he is attacked by a Pyhton and he kills it with a pen (as you do!).  And afterward he swims toward the surface and looks up and sees Jaws stand over him who grabs Bond out of the water and Bond feebly punches Jaws in the stomach, which has no affect at all!  And Drax says to Bond "Why did you break up the encounter with my pet python, Mr Bond?" and Bond quips "Oh I discovered it had a crush on me".  Then there is Bond's last encounter with Drax as he confronts him on the space station at an airlock, Drax taunts Bond and says "I least I shall have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery.  Poor, desolate, Mr Bond!" and Bond shoots Drax with his wrist dart gun and Bond says "Heartbroken, Mr Drax!" and he pushes Drax toward the airlock and says "Please take a giant step for mankind!" and ejects him into outer space.

Michael Lonsdale whilst he does not make the most effective Bond villain of all time he still provides a decent performance as Drax, the villainous megalomaniac who intends to poison the Earth so he can repopulate with his "master race" of people on his space station.  Lonsdale clearly does relish some of his lines of dialogue and there are some scenes where he provides some amusement in his threats.  And some examples of this include the scene where he says to his men after Bond has been captured at Drax's base in the Amazon after Bond has his encounter with the Python in the pool, Drax says "Jaws, Mr Bond must be cold after his swim.  Place him where he can be assured of warmth!" and Bond and Goodhead are later placed in the chamber right underneath the exhaust port of one of the shuttles, which would fry them on its take-off.  And onboard the space station, Drax says to Bond and Goodhead "Allow me to introduce you to the airlock chamber.  Observe, Mr Bond, your route from this world to the next.  And you, Dr Goodhead, your desire to become America's first woman in space will shortly be fulfilled!".  Then there is the scene after Drax first meets with Bond, Drax turns to his bodyguard Chang and says "Look after, Mr Bond, see that some harm comes to him!".  And lastly my favourite line that Lonsdale has in the film is when Drax orders Jaws to dispose of Bond and Goodhead on the space station as Jaws starts to have second thoughts over Drax's megalomania and Drax yells "Jaws! EXPEL THEM!!".

Then we have Lois Chiles as Dr Goodhead, who turns out to be a CIA agent who helps out Bond as the film progresses, who is the real weak link in the chain here of the cast as her performance is largely very wooden.  Chiles often seems to struggle with delivering her dialogue convincingly even in simple scenes such as the one where Bond is nearly killed in the spaceflight simulator and after Bond shoots the controls to save his life and she helps him out and says "Something must have went wrong with the controls!".  And one of her worst moments in the film is when Bond catches up with Goodhead again in Venice and he catches her looking at something and she gives him a look of surprise as Bond says "Why, Dr Goodhead!" its just so badly acted its unreal!  Although her opening scene is quite amusing where Bond arrives at Drax industries complex and meets with her and Bond says "Hello I'm looking for Dr Goodhead" and she says "You've found her" and Bond looks surprised saying "A woman!" and Goodhead replies "You're powers of observation do you good, Mr Bond!".  But Lois's worst line in the film comes during the "re-entry" scene when Bond and Goodhead get it together on the shuttle, anti-gravity style and she says to Bond "James, take me round the world one more time!". Jeeeeeeezzzz!

Richard Kiel on the other hand fares much better in his reprise of everyone's favourite villain, Jaws, the steel toothed giant killer who makes two separate appearances in the film in both the opening sequence and later on once Drax has hired Jaws to do his dirty work.  And while Kiel doesn't have much in the way of dialogue he has plenty of good moments as Jaws has become an even more bumbling villain than before.  And this is noted in the title scene where Jaws skydives after Bond, who escapes and Jaws tries pulling the rip cord on his parachute only to yank it off and he ends up falling through a circus tent!  And whether or not it was intentional in this film, Jaws doesn't kill anyone, although that is probably more to do with his bungled attempts at trying to kill Bond, but he comes close to killing someone else as he attempts to bite Bond's female contact in Rio, but he is forced to stop as he is caught up in a street parade, which is the only sinister moment he has in the film.  But Jaws has some fun moments as well such as the cable car scene where he tries to persue Bond in his own car as he indicates to the man who he is working, operating the controls, which spiral out of his control, as we see Bond and Goodhead hold onto one another as they fashion a makeshift zip line they escape safely as Jaws's cable car crashes much to his comical alarm!  And being as indestructable as he is he survives the crash and not only that he finds his true love as well as a young blonde girl comes to aid him, he softens and smiles, takes her hand and they walk off together!  Then there is another amusing scene where Jaws tries to kill off Bond yet again during a speedboat chase on the Amazon, but Bond escapes using a hand glider, leaving Jaws to try and turn the wheel of his speedboat but instead he yanks it off, and looks on in shock again (comical shock!) as his speedboat falls over the edge of the water into the relentless rapids below!  And last of all there is the scene where Jaws changes his allegiance and helps Bond to escape near the end, and Jaws and his girlfriend, Dolly, take an ejection pod of their own and escape as they pour some champagne, they toast and Jaws says his only words in this film "Well here's to us".

And last of all Bernard Lee and Desmond Llewellyn reprise their roles well as M and Q respectively as does Lois Maxwell in her role as Moneypenny (although she was starting to look a bit old at this point!).  And Llewellyn has the funniest line in the film as M and Q watch the live footage of Bond and Goodhead canoodling and M outraged says "My God, what does Bond think he is doing???!" and M peering at the screens says "I think he's attempting re-entry, sir!".  Class.

Finally moving onto the director, Lewis Gilbert, who previously directed The Spy Who Loved Me, does a good job here again as he confidently handles the action set-pieces and also allows for the usual tongue in cheek humour we are so used to see in Bond films.  Gilbert also makes good use of the film's various locations as the film was shot in cities such as London, Paris, Venice and Rio De Janeiro.  Gilbert also impressively staged the zero gravity space sequences on the space station by using the largest amount of gravity wires ever used at one time in any film!  And last of all there is the music score by John Barry, which is good and suprisingly poignant as well in places, although it has to be said that the title theme sung by Shirley Bassey isn't the best and there has been better Bond title themes than this one.

As for flaws...... yep Moonraker has one or two, to begin with it has to be said that the film's most tedious sequences are indeed the outer space ones on the space station at the end as at that point the film becomes quite sluggish, in fact just as sluggish as the actors movements in zero gravity (despite how well its staged it is still quite dull to watch!).  The film also at this point features a pretty boring space battle as well as the American troops are sent on to follow Drax's people after Bond sends a message to them to intercept Drax.  Another problem with the film also stems from Christopher Wood's largely comical script which is filled with some ridiculous lines and the plot itself is pretty silly and nothing too new where Drax is yet another crazed megalomaniac intent on conquering the world in some way or another.  Wood's script is also quite chauvanistic of course as well is Bond's character anyway as seen in the scene where he reacts in surprise to finding out Dr Goodhead is in fact a woman as if a woman could possibly be an astronaut (well OK it was still the 70s so you can get the attitudes of the time I suppose).  And another issue with the film also probably lies in the fact that it doesn't really have a proper sinister villain in it, as Drax is pretty much an ineffective one note nutter who delivers his threats with no real sense of menace.  And Jaws who was actually quite chilling early on in The Spy Who Loved Me, is reduced even further to a comical character and he ends up going from being a cold killer to being a smitten puppy dog by the end of the film (albeit still a very big one with large steel teeth!).        

But despite all that Moonraker is still an entertaining Bond film and worth a watch even if it isn't one of the best.

And on that note I shall bid yee farewell!

007 Live and Let Die "He always did have an inflated opinion of himself!"

 

Right OK so its about time I did another post and this un will be on another James Bond film and I've opted to go for Live and Let Die, Roger Moore's debut in the role.  So let's raise those eyebrows, get out the fancy gadgets and give this un a look....

So the story begins with the deaths of three MI6 agents who are all killed in mysterious circumstances, while they were monitoring the operations of Dr Kananga (Yaphet Kotto) a dictator of a small island, San Monique in the Carribean.  James Bond (Moore) is then assigned to investigate the death of the agent in New York and Kananga is also there, visiting the United Nations.  Bond's driver however is killed by a passing motorist when he travels enroute to meet his FBI buddy, Felix Liter (David Hedison) which nearly causes a car crash.  Bond is then able to trace the killer's licence plate to Mr Big, a ruthless gangster who runs a chain of restaurants throughout the United States.  Bond entering one of Mr Big's restaurants is taken to see Mr Big who orders to have him killed, but before he is taken out, Bond meets Mr Big's tarot, Solitaire, a beautiful young women who can see both the future and events that happen remotely in the present.  Bond manages to escape and is soon lead back to Felix by one of Felix's men and after this Bond travels to San Monique where he meets up with a rookie FBI agent, Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry).  Together with Rosie, Bond travels on a boat along with Bond's friend, Quarrel Jr (Roy Stewart) to Solitaire's home.  However Bond suspects Rosie of being a double agent and working for Kananga and forces her to tell him what is going but she flees and is killed remotely by Kananga, by a dart.  Bond then sneaks into Solitaire's home and tricks her by showing a tarot card that they will be "Lovers" and uses this to seduce her, although we soon see he was holding a stacked set of "Lovers" cards.  Solitaire shortly afterward reluctantly agrees to help Bond bring down Kananga and they flee and escape the island and travel to New Orleans.

After arriving in New Orleans however Bond is captured and taken to Mr Big who angrily insists did he touch Solitaire but Bond insists he will only reveal this to Kananga, which prompts Mr Big to reveal that he is in fact Kananga by removing facial make-up.  Kananga also reveals that he is producing two tonnes of heroin and uses the locals fear of voodoo and the occult to keep the poppy fields safe.  Kananga eventually also plans on giving away the heroin by using his alter ego of Mr Big to increase the drug addicts in America, so he can drive his other competitors out of the business and hike up the prices for his own benefit.  Bond however refuses to admit that he seduced Solitaire and he is instead knocked out by Kananga's henchman, Tee Hee Johnson (Julius Harris) who has a prosthetic arm and taken away.  Kananga then expresses his anger at Solitaire as he said it should have been him that claimed her virginity and not anyone else.  Meanwhile Bond is taken to a crocodile farm where he is left by Tee Hee to be eaten by crocodiles, but Bond manages to escape by running along the crocodiles backs and he steals a speedboat, which leads into a big chase where he is persued by Kananga's men and the Louisiana state police, which includes Sheriff J.W. Pepper (Clifton James).  After Bond successfully evades Kananga's men he travels back to San Monique in order to save Solitaire who has been ordered to be put to death by Kananga at the hands of Baron Samedi (Geoffrey Holder).  And from here Bond must try and rescue not only Solitaire but put a stop to Kananga's nefarious schemes once and for all......

As a debut for Roger Moore in the role of 007, Live and Let Die is a very entertaining and impressive Bond film, which saw the series undergo a refreshing change in pace and in tone of the franchise.  The film also was somewhat daring and a little controversial in its use of black villains and it mirrored the idea of militant black groups of the time such as the Black Panthers in America.  Initially the producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were keen to have Sean Connery star in the role again, however Connery declined, which saw a big casting take place to replace the leading role, which eventually went to Roger Moore.

Performance wise things are generally good with Roger Moore who while he is not the world's best actor he still provides a charismatic performance as 007 and he has his fair share of good one liners and he incorporates a good mix of humour and seriousness when required.  Moore has quite a few highlights in the film such as his first scene where he hides an Italian girl he is seeing in a closet and he receivesba briefing from M and after he goes he lets out the girl and uses his magnetised watch to unzip her dress and she says "Such a delicate touch!" and Bond quips "sheer magnetism, darling!". Then there is the scene where he kills a snake that is let loose in his hotel room by using a cigarette lighter and aftershave spray and casually uses the spray on himself afterward!  Another scene is when he is being chased by Kananga's men and he steals a biplane to evade them pretending to be the instructor to a client and he says to her after smashing through some hangar bay doors to escape them "Same time next week, Mrs Bell??".  Then there is the scene when Bond seduces Solitaire and after they have slept with one another he says "Darling, I must admit I had the decked slightly stacked in my favour" after he tricked by using a stack of tarot cards that with the lovers symbol on them.  And lastly there is Bond's climactic fight scened first with Kananga where he forces him to swallow a compressed air pellet which causes him literally burst which must rank as one of the funniest ever Bond deaths and Bond after says "Well he always did have an inflated opinion of himself!".  And last of all is Bond's fight with Tee Hee where he cuts the wires inside his prosthetic arm which locks to the train window and Bond opens the window and throws Tee Hee out leaving his arm!  Bond then dumps the arm out the window as Solitaire asks what he is doing he says "Just being disarming, darling!".

Yaphet Kotto is great in his role as the main villain, Dr Kananga who also uses his alter ego of Mr Big to sell drugs in order to expand his drug empire.  Kotto has his fair share of highlights such as the the scene where Kananga is disguised as Mr Big in his first scene and he meets briefly with Bond and says "Name's are for tombstones, baby!  Take this honky outside and waste him!".  Also Mr Big's second scene is a really good one (in fact its Yaphet's best scene in the film) where he angrily confronts Bond again demanding to know if he had slept with Solitaire and he says "You damn lucky you got an ear left to hear the question with!  Which is (pointing to Solitaire) did you mess with that?" and Bond refuses to answer which prompts Mr Big to yell "You ain't gonna see the sunlight unless you answer me, boy!  DID YOU TOUCH HER???!".  And Bond firmly says "When I see Kananga!" which prompts Mr Big to reveal himself to be Kananga by tearing off his face make-up.  And later in the same scene when Kananga has Bond strapped into his chair and Tee Hee uses the pincer on his prosthetic arm to grab Bonds' pinky!  And Kananga says "Tee Hee, from the first wrong answer from Solitaire, you will snip the little finger on Mr Bond's right hand.  Starting with the second wrong answer you may proceed to the more.... VITAL areas!".  And later after Bond is taken away, Kananga grows angry with Solitaire and slaps her and says "When the time came, I myself would have given you love.  You knew that.  YOU KNEW THAT!!!" and he continues "There is only one proper way to deal with this" and Baron Samedi who is in the room with them picks a tarot card that says "Death" and Kananga continues "and one proper time!".  Amusingly enough the name Kananga came from the owner of a crocodile farm, Ross Kananga, whom the film crew discovered while location scouting in Jamaica for the film.  The film's writer, Tom Mankiewicz, then later decided to write in the farm to the script and also named the main villain as Kananga as a result.

Jane Seymour while she is a decent actress (and a lovely looking lady) she actually provides the film's weakest performance as Solitaire as her character is almost like a spoilt child who is kept in the dark and Bond eventually deflowers her.  And her character largely talks in cliches and most of Seymour's dialogue is pretty hackneyed.  This is especially noted near the end where she waits for James to come out the bathroom on the train and she says "for the first time in my life I feel like a complete woman!".  Acchh sheeddup.  Although Seymour does seem to enjoy conveying Solitaire's repressed sexual desires after Bond takes her virginity, she all of a sudden appears to be a bit horny after they have first slept together.  And in the scene Bond explains the first two rules of the lovers and Solitaire asks "Is there enough time for lesson number 3?".

Julius Harris on the other hand is really good in his role as Kananga's main henchman, Tee Hee, who has a prosphetic arm as the result of an unfortunate dalliance with a crocodile.  And Harris's best scene comes when he takes Bond to the crocodile farm and he shows him around the farm before leaving Bond stranded with the crocs.  And Tee Hee says to Bond "There are two ways to disable a crocodile you know" and as Bond asks "I don't suppose you'd care to share that information with me" and Tee Hee says "One way is to take a pencil, and jam it into the pressure hole between his eye" and Bond asks "and the other?" and Tee Hee responds "oh the other is twice as simple.  You just put your hand in its mouth and pull it teeth out!".  David Hedison, one of the rarest of actors to have played Felix Liter twice does well with his role of the FBI agent here and in fact in a way you could almost see him as the definitive choice to play the part and in a way its a pity he wasn't recast in the part more often.

Geoffrey Holder is quite effective in his role of Baron Samedi, one of the Kananga's henchmen who has links to the occult and voodoo.  Samedi is also noted in the film as the man who never dies and this certainly appears to be the case as in his second last scene after he struggles with Bond, Bond punches Samedi into a coffin of snakes, apparently he is killed off, but later we see him sitting on the end of the train at the very end of the film, cackling madly.  Gloria Hendry on the other hand is quite annoying in her part as the inept FBI agent, Rosie Carver who has a brief liaison on with Bond but turns out to be a double agent working for Kananga.

And last of all we have Clifton James as the infamous Sheriff J.W. Pepper who is quite a memorable but also annoying character in the Bond franchise as he is essentially just a redneck cop who loves to spout "boy!" every five seconds and spits out also every five seconds!  Still James has a few amusing moments in the film and fun lines of dialogue such as in the scene where his car has been wrecked by a boat landing on it.  And Pepper walks slowly up to another patrol car and says to the driver "By the powers invested in me by this parish, I hereby do commandeer this vehicle and all those persons within!  And that means YOU smartass!".  And after Bond has evaded Kananga's men and Pepper finally catches up with him he looks disgusted with him and says "What are you?!  Some kinda doomsday machine, boy?  Well WE gotta a cage strong enough to hold you!".  And at this point one of the state troopers tells Pepper who Bond is and Pepper reacts incredulously "Secret AGENT?!!  On WHOSE SIDE???!!".

As for the director, Guy Hamilton does an excellent job here and he was already an established veteran of the series by then and he confidently handles the film's fast action and setpieces admirably well.  And I can't forget to mention the film's excellent music by the Beatles producer, George Martin, who provides an impressive arrangement of orchestral tracks along with the use of guitar, bass and percussion.  And there is of course also the film's great title theme sung by Paul MacCartney from Wings, which to this day still stands out as one of the very best Bond title themes.

So as for the film's flaws????  Well.... Live and Let Die does have some problems, perhaps the first one could be the film could be seen to have some racial overtones in the depiction of its black villains but it morely mirrors the Blaxploitation films of the time and heavily borrows from them in the depiction of the African American gangsters.  However the film does thankfully manage to steer mostly clear of any direct racial bigotry and potrays Bond as not being prejudiced in any way in the film as he even has a brief romance with Rosie Carver and is good friends with Quarrel Jr (played by Roy Stewart).  One of the other problems the film has is that it does lag in places, particularly in the chase scenes on Kananga's island where Bond and Solitaire try to escape using a bus as this scene is pretty boring and feels flat but thankfully the pacing picks up again after that scene.  There is also the inclusion of characters such as Sheriff J.W. Pepper where his bigoted nature and bumbling sense of humour could appear to be an attempt to appeal to the audience but by doing so it would be playing on the amusement of his prejudiced attitude as well, which makes his character in itself a little uneasy to watch in the film.  Yet they decided to bring Pepper back into The man with the golden gun (which I have already reviewed) as if he was such a great an amusing character but overall he is just an arse and a bigoted one at that.

Anyway despite those niggles Live and Let Die is still a very entertaining and solid entry in the Bond series and it saw Roger Moore make a fine start in his debut of the role, which he would play for a further 12 years (although I think its safe to say he was getting a bit too old for the part by then!).

And with that I shall say to yee's goodnight!