Moonraker (1979)
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Moonraker (1979)
_______ Much of this was simply a letdown after The Spy Who Loved Me, my personal favorite of the Moore Bond films.
Bond finally makes it into outer space, a dozen years after just missing his chance in You Only Live Twice. Capitalizing on the success of the previous The Spy Who Loved Me and taking advantage of the recent sci-fi craze following "Star Wars," the producers ended up with the most financially successful Moore Bonder, but the positive aspects pretty much end there. There is a fairly exciting theft of a space shuttle in the beginning and the rest of the teaser is great - a flabbergasting use of skydiving to create a special thrill - but even here, it ends on a disquieting note: returning giant henchman Jaws, mugging for the camera, is made to look like a clown as he falls on top of a circus tent.
Singer Bassey returns for the 3rd time to sing over the credits (after Diamonds Are Forever) and it's her least effort. With the same director and a few other elements duplicating the better stuff of the previous Bonder, there's a 'by-the-numbers' feel to the storyline. Even worse, there's too much tongue-in-cheek, with Bond grinning away many of the threats to his well being and almost winking at the camera. When Q presents Bond with his latest gadget (a wrist gizmo which fires darts) in M's office, it comes across as perfunctory, almost tedious, and even laughable considering all the high tech weaponry we see later. This was, by the way, actor Bernard Lee's final performance as M.
Bond's mission takes him to California at first, where the main villain has seemingly transplanted a big chunk of France to set up his own private kingdom (it's actually filmed in France, natch). This sequence expands on the usual master villain's domain premise, going all the way back to the first one, Dr. No, and very similar to Stromberg's lair of the previous film. The villain has unlimited funds (it's mentioned that he even purchased the Eiffel Tower) and so much money has apparently gone to his head in a very bad way. Later, of course, we see that his domain has been expanded beyond even the constraints of the Earth and his master plan denotes an ego of monstrous proportions, making even Hitler look short-sighted in his ambitions, yet there's no sense of actual megalomania which we've come to expect of Bond's top nemesis. It's telling that the only really threatening scene here involves a couple of trained dogs.
Bond then travels to Venice, Rio de Janeiro (where there's another action scene very high up on a couple of cable cars), the Amazon jungle and, finally, into orbit around the Earth, being dogged by Jaws and a few other minor henchmen most of the way. Most of the chasing involves water sports, such as in the canals of Venice and on the Amazon River; rather than a gimmicked auto, Bond employs souped up boats in this one. Rather than sharks or piranha, Bond tangles with a snake in the water, a misconceived and pointless scene (there has to be a weird animal threat, based on previous Bonders).
His ally, a female scientist/covert CIA agent (Chiles), continues the liberated woman concept begun in The Spy Who Loved Me. The problem here is that Chiles' line delivery is very flat, somewhat robotic, as if she were reading her lines off a script placed just off camera. Maybe the actress was nervous, being in her first big blockbuster role.
But, the problem extends to the other major roles, as well, including master villain Drax. The actor Lonsdale has been superb in many other roles (as in "The Day of the Jackal"), but here he is very stiff, in monotone, as if someone was pointing a laser gun at his head during his acting scenes, threatening to pull the trigger if he dared to emote even slightly. In fact, he seems quite bored during the entire movie; this suggests an intriguing concept, that the villain has decided to change the world simply because he's bored with the whole thing, but, unfortunately, the boredom attaches itself to the viewer. By contrast, Stromberg, though not the most colorful of villains, at least suggested a necessary mania to convey why the world must be altered in his godlike view.
Worst of all is the revised approach to the brutish Jaws character, who behaves more and more like a buffoon as the film progresses, rather than the scary killer of The Spy Who Loved Me (the only bad guy to be brought back from a previous Bonder, this seems, in retrospect, an error). Especially cartoonish is his mortified expression at the end of each fight with Bond, as he heads for another painful disaster. It reaches Monty Pythonesque proportions when Jaws meets his new lady love, recalling scenes from the James Bond parody "Casino Royale" from 1967.
The whole thing ends up on a huge space station, with a battle now parodying blazing laser guns of conventional sci-fi pictures. This station was meant to be a modern Noah's Ark, with a group of couples meant to begin a new human race, but I think Drax and his scientists overlooked the limited genetic variation of such a small start-up; all these perfect specimens either disappear or are killed in the finale - it's a sign of the film's weaknesses that I didn't pay much attention to this. Moore, just past 50 at this point, looked good for his age, but he probably should have been retired after this one. He, as Bond, would return in For Your Eyes Only.
BoG's Bond Scores: Bond:7 Villain:6 Femme Fatales:5 Henchmen:5 Fights:7 Stunts/Chases:7 Gadgets:6 Auto:5 Locations:9 Pace:7 overall:6.5
Bond finally makes it into outer space, a dozen years after just missing his chance in You Only Live Twice. Capitalizing on the success of the previous The Spy Who Loved Me and taking advantage of the recent sci-fi craze following "Star Wars," the producers ended up with the most financially successful Moore Bonder, but the positive aspects pretty much end there. There is a fairly exciting theft of a space shuttle in the beginning and the rest of the teaser is great - a flabbergasting use of skydiving to create a special thrill - but even here, it ends on a disquieting note: returning giant henchman Jaws, mugging for the camera, is made to look like a clown as he falls on top of a circus tent.
Singer Bassey returns for the 3rd time to sing over the credits (after Diamonds Are Forever) and it's her least effort. With the same director and a few other elements duplicating the better stuff of the previous Bonder, there's a 'by-the-numbers' feel to the storyline. Even worse, there's too much tongue-in-cheek, with Bond grinning away many of the threats to his well being and almost winking at the camera. When Q presents Bond with his latest gadget (a wrist gizmo which fires darts) in M's office, it comes across as perfunctory, almost tedious, and even laughable considering all the high tech weaponry we see later. This was, by the way, actor Bernard Lee's final performance as M.
Bond then travels to Venice, Rio de Janeiro (where there's another action scene very high up on a couple of cable cars), the Amazon jungle and, finally, into orbit around the Earth, being dogged by Jaws and a few other minor henchmen most of the way. Most of the chasing involves water sports, such as in the canals of Venice and on the Amazon River; rather than a gimmicked auto, Bond employs souped up boats in this one. Rather than sharks or piranha, Bond tangles with a snake in the water, a misconceived and pointless scene (there has to be a weird animal threat, based on previous Bonders).
His ally, a female scientist/covert CIA agent (Chiles), continues the liberated woman concept begun in The Spy Who Loved Me. The problem here is that Chiles' line delivery is very flat, somewhat robotic, as if she were reading her lines off a script placed just off camera. Maybe the actress was nervous, being in her first big blockbuster role.
But, the problem extends to the other major roles, as well, including master villain Drax. The actor Lonsdale has been superb in many other roles (as in "The Day of the Jackal"), but here he is very stiff, in monotone, as if someone was pointing a laser gun at his head during his acting scenes, threatening to pull the trigger if he dared to emote even slightly. In fact, he seems quite bored during the entire movie; this suggests an intriguing concept, that the villain has decided to change the world simply because he's bored with the whole thing, but, unfortunately, the boredom attaches itself to the viewer. By contrast, Stromberg, though not the most colorful of villains, at least suggested a necessary mania to convey why the world must be altered in his godlike view.
Worst of all is the revised approach to the brutish Jaws character, who behaves more and more like a buffoon as the film progresses, rather than the scary killer of The Spy Who Loved Me (the only bad guy to be brought back from a previous Bonder, this seems, in retrospect, an error). Especially cartoonish is his mortified expression at the end of each fight with Bond, as he heads for another painful disaster. It reaches Monty Pythonesque proportions when Jaws meets his new lady love, recalling scenes from the James Bond parody "Casino Royale" from 1967.
The whole thing ends up on a huge space station, with a battle now parodying blazing laser guns of conventional sci-fi pictures. This station was meant to be a modern Noah's Ark, with a group of couples meant to begin a new human race, but I think Drax and his scientists overlooked the limited genetic variation of such a small start-up; all these perfect specimens either disappear or are killed in the finale - it's a sign of the film's weaknesses that I didn't pay much attention to this. Moore, just past 50 at this point, looked good for his age, but he probably should have been retired after this one. He, as Bond, would return in For Your Eyes Only.
BoG's Bond Scores: Bond:7 Villain:6 Femme Fatales:5 Henchmen:5 Fights:7 Stunts/Chases:7 Gadgets:6 Auto:5 Locations:9 Pace:7 overall:6.5
Base of Galactic Science Fiction :: SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA :: Semi-Science Fiction Films :: Super Agents - James Bond and his ilk
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