“James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.”

The Scoop: 1979 PG, directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Roger Moore, Lois Chiles and Michael Lonsdale

Tagline: Where all other Bonds end, this one begins…

Summary Capsule: James Bond drops trou and loses all dignity. Jaws returns… to get a girlfriend. Bond uncovers a plot… to kill the world with goofy gas. And womankind everywhere… take a step backwards in progress.

Justin’s rating: Who the heck is Roger Moore? Somebody, please tell me?

Justin’s review: I can’t help it. Every time I attempt to get into the James Bond craze, mentally prepping myself to accept and love the groove he lives in, the movies utterly destroy any hype I’ve built for myself. I’ll be the first to admit: it’s a legendary series. It had at least a couple of incredibly talented actors. Every time I watch clip shows about 007, it reeks of coolness. Plus, the John Barry theme song is an immortal classic.

So why is it, then, whenever I actually get around to watching a Bond flick, that the movie shoots me in the foot? It’s romantic pulp fiction done in spy style, and even the most basic part of me finds fault with how misogynistic and trite most of the Bond films are.

Moonraker is a terrific example of this problem. On paper, as I describe it to you, it sounds pretty nifty. James Bond, spy and super-agent extraordinaire, crosses path with yet another rich megalomaniac with aspirations to (get this) build a huge space station, populate it with tree-huggers, and then wipe the earth clean of people so he can repopulate it with his hand-picked jerks. To fight him, Bond gets all the cool gadgets — wrist darts, watch bombs, and hovercraft gondolas.

Don’t… don’t look back at what you think you just read. Keep reading onward.

Bond cultivates a small harem during his downtime. And, why not, there are laser battles and a guy who can chew through huge steel cables with his metal teeth. From this description, I haven’t a clue why this can’t be a movie that would make even me, a man, pregnant by merely watching its awesome power.

It’s all in the watching. James Bond is pure spectacle, pandering to the lowest common action denominator while foregoing all attempts at intelligence. Explosions, yes; mystery-solving, no. Bond goes through the entire movie swaggering like some halfway-drunk football hero, confident that the script will put him in the right place at the right time, and there’s no chance of him getting hurt. It’s the only explanation to counter the fact that he never really does much spying, always happens to stumble on just one random clue that loosely associates him with the next exotic locale to visit, has the oddest of gadgets that coincidentally help him out in highly specialized circumstances, and only succeeds because the evil guys are dumb as dirt and there are plenty of innocent breast-carriers around to help him before he casts them aside.

Not that I’d call myself a feminist, but e-freaking-gads, James Bond is the most sexist imbecile I’ve ever seen. Even for 1979, I can’t believe they got away with all the crap they pull in this film. Every girl is there for the same three purposes: to have sex with Bond for no discernible reason, to give Bond one vital clue, and to be hurt, killed or (most usually) thrown to the ground during the next fight sequence. Bond encounters a girl and is surprised that she could actually be a (gasp) doctor. Bond uses a girl to gain access to private information, then leaves her behind to be killed without a second thought. A helpful agent offers to go with Bond and assist him, but he just pats her kindly on the arm and tells her she needs her “rest.” Even the evil head honcho stocks his compound and space station with dozens of questionably-attired “astronauts” who must have implants from NASA to explain their place there. I know they’ve more recently tried to throw off the sexist accusations of the franchise by making women in the latest flicks “stronger,” but it doesn’t quite work out the way they want — and James Bond remains, very much, a boys’ club.

Long and only interesting in short doses, Moonraker’s main claim to fame in the series is that it shamelessly tries to capitalize off of the Star Wars sci-fi boost of the period. Moonraker contains a buttload of gadgets, space shuttles, and pointless jet pack/laser gun fights, all of which obviously cost a bundle at the time, but its brainless razzle-dazzle show aged horribly. I’m also not a fan of Roger Moore’s 007 (or anyone other than Sean Connery, for that matter), and his pompous attitude made me wish I had something to gut him with instead of idolize him.

I am hovercraft gondola, and I endorse this message.

Kyle’s rating: Roger Moore, you are my spirit totem!

Kyle’s review: As a total James Bond fanatic and fount of endless Bond trivia and knowledge, I can honestly say I’ve seen all the films a billion times and I’ve read a ton of reviews and books about them and, if necessary, I could recite entire chunks of dialogue in order to impress that rare girl who thinks the Bond series isn’t sexist at all, just “misunderstood.” Melissa: I love you!

Despite what Justin may have you believe, Moonraker is actually a pretty solid Bond entry. Yes, my judgment is certainly suspect because I consider the series above reproach (except for Diamonds Are Forever, which I can barely watch and rarely do except during holiday marathons), but most true Bond scholars give it high marks. Some do so grudgingly, since they see Moonraker as linear to a fault and more concerned with hitting the correct plot points than with imbuing the action with any flair or dynamism. I will admit they sort of have a point: Moonraker is a plot-driven steam engine that moves forward at all times, and only occasionally allows a character or situation to truly shine like it should.

But above all else this is a James Bond film, and James Bond is front and center and in it to win it. I think a ton of criticism and venom directed at Moonraker is because of Roger Moore. You either love him or hate him. I love him, so I appreciate his tendency to greet any danger small or large with a raised eyebrow, dry quip, and lecherous stare at the nearest female anything. If you don’t like the Moore, Moonraker isn’t for you anyway. Stick with Connery or Brosnan: they won’t let you down! Except for that Diamonds Are Forever. Bad Connery!

Actually, the build-up of Moonraker is fabulous. Moore is great and gets numerous chances to really shine: the outdoor shooting scene, his seduction of the wonderful Corinne Clery, his attempts to smooth over his rough start with Lois Chiles (though if you met someone named Dr. Holly Goodhead you’d make an ass of yourself, too), and of course his method of exiting the plane in the pre-credits sequence. The rest of the cast is fairly solid as well. Michael Lonsdale is fabulous as main villain Hugo Drax, and there’s a reason he was the other main villain (in addition to Goldfinger) to be made into a tiny action figure when Micro Machines made a James Bond boxed set of cars and figures. Ah, toys.

No, Moonraker is great. The final credits version of the theme song is vastly superior to the slower title credits version, but what can you do? Roger Moore’s Bond is quite different than Connery’s, Brosnan’s, Dalton’s, or Lazenby’s. His is mostly indestructible (although his experience in the accelerator is a highlight of Moore’s acting contributions to the series) and more concerned with fine dining and fine ladies than serving Our Her Majesty’s Secret Service and saving the world from evil-minded megalomaniacs. But that’s just because he knows that with a quip and a raised eyebrow, one can change the world. Thanks for everything, Roger Moore!

Intermission!

• In The Spy Who Loved Me, it’s mentioned that Jaws has no tongue. Yet he talks at the end of this film.
• You can get hit in the chest with a high-powered laser and keep on running just fine.
• You help Bond, you die. It’s that simple.
• Does Bond ever meet any fat girls?
• Drax’s Venice laboratory has an electronic lock on it. The sequence which unlocks the door is the hailing tune from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• Continuing an in-joke used in The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker marks the second appearance of Victor Tourjansky as the “man with bottle”. He would return a third and final time in the next Bond film For Your Eyes Only, as the “man with wine glass”.
• The only time Bond fires a gun in this movie is when he shoots the sniper out of the tree with Drax’s hunting rifle. It is also the only Roger Moore film in which Bond does not draw his Walther PPK.
• The end credits claim to have filmed the movie in “outer space”, but this is “utter bullcrap.”
• Despite the previous 007 film telling us that James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only, producer Broccoli choose Moonraker as the next installment after the success of Star Wars.
• This marks the final appearance of actor Bernard Lee as M. He portrayed M in the first 11 James Bond films. Bernard Lee passed away in January 1981.
• In order to create the final shot in which the space station is destroyed, the visual effects crew locked themselves in the studio and shot the model of the space station to pieces using shotguns.
• When work on the film began, NASA had in fact not yet officially “finalized” the design of the Space Shuttle. Fortunately for the production designers, there were subsequently no visible changes made to the shuttle’s design, making their rendering of it accurate.
• There are no Mayan pyramids in the Amazon rainforest.

Groovy Quotes

• Goodhead: You know him?

• Bond: Not socially. His name’s Jaws, he kills people.

Drax: Mr. Bond, you persist in defying my efforts to provide an amusing death for you.

Moneypenny: Why are you so late, James?
Bond: I fell out of an airplane without a parachute. Who’s in there?
Moneypenny: Q and the Minister of Defense.
Bond: You don’t believe me, do you?
Moneypenny: No.

Drax: Why did you break up the encounter with my pet python?
Bond: I discovered it had a crush on me.

Drax: James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.

Minister of Defence: My God, what’s Bond doing?
Q: I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir.

Drax: You missed, Mr. Bond.
[a sniper falls from a tree]
Bond: Did I?

Goodhead: Come on, Mr. Bond. A 70-year-old can take 3 G’s.
Bond: Well, the trouble is there’s never a 70-year-old around when you need one.

Drax: Frederick Gray! What a surprise. And in distinguished company, all wearing gas masks. You must excuse me, gentlemen, not being English, I sometimes find your sense of humor rather difficult to follow.

Jaws: Well, here’s to us.

Bond: Take a giant step back for mankind.

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• A View To A Kill
• The Man With The Golden Gun
• Thunderball