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!
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