This review of Moonraker (1979) is part of a wider rewatch of the James Bond series to mark its 60th anniversary. 007 has always been my favourite movie franchise, and I wanted to see where each film ranks within the series. Please check out the main blog post for my rankings of this and the other twenty-four official films and links to the movie reviews for the rest of the franchise.
Short Review
Although I did enjoy this film, it has some fun stunts, and it is nice to see Jews back. The middle third of this film, with him going from country to country to find the Moonraker, was a bit unnecessary. It’s an interesting film, which did very well at the Box Office and was the highest-grossing Bond film until Goldeneye came out in 1995 (according to From Rewatch with Love). The story is just a bit too unbelievable in parts for me, even for a Bond film.
Long Review and Film Summary
Moonraker, like a lot of the earlier Bond films, is one which I have seen parts of but not the whole film. I feel like I have probably seen the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes loads of times but never seen the rest, so it was nice to sit down and watch the movie in full. Starring Roger Moore as 007, Moonraker wasn’t meant to be the next film; at the end of The Spy Who Loved Me, it said, “James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only”. According to From Rewatch with Love, this film was made instead to capitalise on the hype from Star Wars. The idea of a British spy with no formal astronaut training going to space is unbelievable even by 007 movie standards. The opening titles start with a shuttle (which we will learn is called Moonraker) being hijacked from the roof of a Boeing 747 by two stowaways, with the plane going down soon after. Bond is on a different plane kissing Corinne Dufour (played by Corinne Cléry), who then trains a gun on him; a fight breaks out, and we see the return of Jews (played by Richard Kiel). I feel that having Jaws in the opening scene was a mistake and takes away from his reveal later in the film. Bond, without a parachute, is pushed out of the plane by Jaws, and a mid-air fight ensues. Bond manages to steal a parachute from the Pilot after doing some physics-breaking “flying”. This apparently took 88 jumps for the stuntmen and camera operators to get the perfect shots for this scene, so big props to them; it can’t have been easy to do back in 1979. Bond deploys and is fine, while Jaw’s parachute is broken, and he lands in a circus big top.
The titles are a Classic Bond opening by Maurice Binder and silhouettes all over the world. The theme song performed by Shirley Bassey is good, but it’s nothing to write home about. For some reason, there’s an annoying beeping throughout the opening titles. The film follows 007 as he tries to find out what happened to the stolen shuttle, which we find out during a meeting between M (played by Bernard Lee), Q (played by Desmond Llewelyn), MOD (played by Geoffrey Keen) and Bond that it was on loan from the USA. Bond heads off to the DRAX Corporation in California, which made the shuttle. 007 is immediately suspicious of Hugo Drax (played by Michael Lonsdale) as they have tea together, after which Drax asks for Bond to be killed. Dr Holly Goodhead (played by Lois Chiles) show 007 around the Astronauts’ training area as a Drax henchman tries to take Bond out on many occasions, including trapping him in a Centrifuge and subjecting him to debilitating G forces. Bond follows the clues to Venice and then Rio, where he runs into Dr Goodhead (who we found out earlier is CIA) looking at DRAX planes. During the film, 007 comes across a lab making nerve gases that do not affect animals or plants, but is lethal to humans – Drax wants to destroy the human race and start again. Towards the end of the film, Bond and Dr Goodhead are put under a rocket engine to die; 007 uses his watch to blow the air vent, and they escape. After stealing a DRAX car and uniform, they manage to replace the real astronauts and end up on Moonraker 6 heading into space. They arrive at the new civilisation in space, along with Moonraker’s 1-5. Once there, Drax delivers a speech about creating the perfect super race and returning it to Earth to shape its new beginning. After working out that Drax is just using him, Jews and his new girlfriend Dolly (played by Blanche Ravalec) help Bond and Dr Goodhead to break free from the space station and take Drax’s Moonraker 5 (fitted with lasers) to go after the satellites which have been launched into space to spray the Nerve Gas onto Earth, they manage to destroy all three of them. This film is very silly, Bond going to space, all the strange fight scenes in space between the US and DRAX forces – everyone just floating around.