(4 votes, average: 3.5 out of 5)
Loading …Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents Moonraker movie review a 1979 film starring Roger Moore, Lois Chiles and directed by Lewis Gilbert James Bond investigates the mid-air theft of a space shuttle and discovers a plot to commit global genocide. A Boeing 747 carrying a US space shuttle on loan to the UK crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. When the British examine the wreckage they can find no trace of the spacecraft and send agent James Bond to the shuttle’s manufacturers, Drax Industries, to investigate. This was the first James Bond adventure produced after the success of Star Wars, so it jumped on the sci-fi bandwagon by combining the suave appeal of Agent 007 (once again played by Roger Moore) with enough high-tech hardware and special effects to make Luke Skywalker want to join Her Majesty’s Secret Service. After the razzle-dazzle of The Spy Who Loved Me, this attempt to latch onto a trend proved to be a case of overkill, even though it brought back the steel-toothed villain Jaws (Richard Kiel) and scored a major hit at the box office. This time Bond is up against a criminal industrialist named Drax (Michel Lonsdale) who wants to control the world from his orbiting space station. In keeping with his well-groomed style, Bond thwarts this maniacal Neo-Hitler’s scheme with the help of a beautiful, sleek-figured scientist (played by Lois Chiles with all the vitality of a department-store mannequin). There’s a grand-scale climax involving space shuttles and ray guns, but despite the film’s popular success, this is one Bond adventure that never quite gets off the launching pad. It’s as if the caretakers of the James Bond franchise had forgotten that it’s Bond–and not a barrage of gizmos and gadgets (including a land-worthy Venetian gondola)–that fuels the series’ success. Despite Moore’s passive performance (which Pauline Kael described as “like an office manager who is turning into dead wood but hanging on to collect his pension”), Moonraker had no problem attracting an appreciative audience, and there are even a few renegade Bond-philes who consider it one of their favorites. –Jeff Shannon
Comment by Justin Ratcliff “egovirus”
# December 31, 2006,
This screen is starting to look like the metaphorical equivalent of the sweet space battle at the end of this breathtaking achievement of cinematic perfection. Well, I’m here to shoot a few of my own lasers now, this movie totally kicks a$$. Let’s start with the opening song, which I think is easily in the top 3 of all time best Bond openers.
So there’s this frog named Drax who wants to kill everyone on Earth, and start from scratch with his own breeding stock of beautiful people. The genocide of the ugly people of Earth comes by virtue of a space delivered disease, or nerve agent, or something equally superfluous, which Drax of course also manufactures.
I have a theory which goes a little something like this: When a man reaches a certain level of wealth, he naturally begins to contemplate some dimension of world conquest. The uber-villains Bond is often pitted against seem to pan this theory out nicely, begging the question, when will 007 take on Dick Cheney, Bill Gates, or Ronald McDonald?
So in comes old pervy Bond to salivate all over the dames, karate chop some mouth brething henchmen, and get all up in Drax’s grille. Drax, for is his part, is no sllouch though. The man is straight evil, but his taste in women, crib’s, and lasers is beyond reproach. I suppose because I grew up with Roger Moore playing Bond, I get the best of both worlds, because Connery and Moore are both Bond to me.
Now, in a movie which already has so much to offer the entertainment starved masses, we see the return of super hencmen JAWS. That alone should raise a pulse or two, because this guy is emma effin indestrutable. You can shoot him in the face, throw him out of an airplane, drop him in a tank full of ill tempered sharks, drop his a$$ from outerspace, and he doesn’t die. Why can’t we unleash this cat in Iraq?
So anyway, Bond figures Drax out, and its on. As I have previously alluded to, there is a magnificent space battle involving cats floating around in space shooting lasers, and invading space stations like that’s all they got paid to do. Wow, if it get’s any better than this they’ll start taxing us for it.
Comment by CHUCK WEST
# December 31, 2006,
“MOONRAKER” is MY favorite of all the James Bond films. I have seen every Bond film at least 20 times each. I cannot speak for other fans, because we all have different perspectives, likes/dislikes, and opinions on what makes up the “best” James Bond film. I can only state MY opinion.
First of all, “MOONRAKER” is, to me, at least, the most ENJOYABLE of all the James Bond films. It is the sleekest and most-polished of them all; this may explain why some Bond fans consider it not “gritty” enough, and therefore, not among the best. I think the themesong “Moonraker,” ALSO MY FAVORITE, exquisitely gentle and flowing, delicate as moonlight itself, sung by Shirley Bassey, sets the tone for the entire movie. Interesting how the end credits picked up the pace with an uptempo disco remix of the title song. But then again, released to theatres in June of 1979, it WAS to be the Summer of Disco.
The scenery in southern California; a mini-France at Drax’s estate; Venice, Italy; Rio de Janeiro and Iguassu Falls, Brazil; and of course the twinkling night sky of outer space DEFINITELY make “MOONRAKER” the most BEAUTIFUL and VISUALLY STUNNING of all the Bond films. I can WATCH the movie over and over and over, if ONLY for the scenery. The Sugar Loaf Mountain surveillance/cable car sequence in Rio de Janeiro is my favorite of ANY Bond film. It is definitely the most scenic and enthralling.
…and what about LOIS CHILES, certainly the most chic and classsy of all the female Bond cohorts. Looking like a brunette Shelley Hack, Miss Chiles is probably THE most capable and intelligent of ALL the Bond “girls,” which may threaten some male fantasies of what the “Bond girl” is supposed to be…the ineffectual, weak, helpless damsel in distress…not Holly Goodhead…as American CIA operative and fully-trained astronaut on loan from NASA, she SAVES Bond from disaster as often, if not more, than he saves her…Remember: SHE drove the rocket and the Moonraker space shuttle…together they were the strongest TEAM effort of Bond and female counterpart…Interesting note: JACLYN SMITH, of American television program CHARLIE’S ANGELS, was first choice for the role of Holly Goodhead, but declined the role due to the suggestive name of the character and scheduling conflicts. I wonder how the film might have been had she taken the role. Regretably the small role of Manuela, Bond’s sidekick from Station VH, in Rio de Janeiro, gets virtually no screen time at all.
Of course the gadgetry is great…I mean, really, a runaway centrifuge…please. A mine-shooting speedboat with detachable hang-glider. Poison pens for relaxing anacondas…Nerve-impulse darts…a watch that blows explosives…an ENTIRE CITY in space, invisible to radar (what…it never cast a shadow over a continent at NOON? COME ON!)
The only real problem I have with this film is the depiction of Hugo Drax. A man who, obsessed with the sterilization of the world and starting it over, not unlike a certain world leader we once had, is subtley portrayed as a homosexual. He directly propositions James Bond at tea time on his California estate, while offering him a sandwich (listen for the line), and none of Drax’s ladies are involved with Drax directly…only with the Noah’s Ark mission into space. Drax’s companion in his own Moonraker shuttle is a young male. While currently we may be able to laugh it off as idiotic, sadly enough, such a portrayal was within the realms of political correctness in 1979.
Anyway, enjoy this film for what it is, no more, no less. Even if you don’t think it was the best Bond film ever, it was certainly the best film and box-office smash of 1979, and one of the best action/adventure/space-themed films of the 1970’s.
HOLLY: “James, take me around the world one more time…” HA HA HA HA HA HA!