Moonraker (1979)
Directed by: Lewis Gilbert.
Written: Christopher Wood.
Starring: Roger Moore (James Bond),
Lois Chiles (Holly Goodhead), Michael Lonsdale (Hugo Drax), Richard Kiel
(Jaws), Corinne Cléry (Corinne Dufour), Bernard Lee (M), Geoffrey Keen (Sir
Frederick Gray), Desmond Llewelyn (Q), Lois Maxwell (Miss Moneypenny).
Moonraker
was the 11th James Bond released, and the fourth time Roger Moore
had the role – and I think by this point, everyone knew what to expect. The
formula for a Bond movie includes a megalomaniacal billionaire villain with
some crazy scheme for world domination (check), his lead henchman, who will be
as memorable as the villain (check), a doomed “bad girl” who Bond will be drawn
so she can be killed (check) a ridiculously named good girl for Bond to
actually fall for (check), gadgets, action, quips, etc. (check, check, check).
It was clear by this point that Moore was no Sean Connery, but he’d do, I guess
– but they were also out of Bond novels, so they had to start coming up with
story ideas – most of which got sillier and sillier. For Moonraker, that meant
Bond had to go to space – almost definitely because Star Wars was a hit, which
is why, we do see some laser gun battles in the finale. Moonraker is hardly an
embarrassment for the franchise – it isn’t as bad as some people think, mainly
because it leans into its camp value harder than most Bond films do. But it
isn’t particularly good either. Like many (dare I say most?) Bond films, it’s
an effective time waster and placeholder – marking time before the next great
Bond movie arrives.
The movie
opens with perhaps its best action sequence – with Bond on a plane that the
pilot has sabotaged, so it’s going to crash and soon. Bond finds himself flying
through the air without a parachute – and engages in not just one, but two
midair fights in an attempt to get one (spoiler alert, he gets one). The main
thrust of the plot involves Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) – a hugely wealthy man
whose company has designed the Moonraker rocket – and has seen that get stolen.
Of course, at first he seems like the victim, but he’s really the bad guy –
with a particularly silly plan for global domination even by Bond villain
standards. One of his henchmen is Jaws (Richard Kiel) – making his second appearance
in a row in a Bond film – proving, he really isn’t that bad a guy. Bond has to
team up with Lois Chiles’ Holly Goodhead (seriously, guys, were they even
trying to come up with clever sexual puns for the women at this point) – a
scientist working for Drax, but not really. I do appreciate that they were
trying to make her more than a bimbo – she really is a smart, capable woman,
and not just a damsel in distress, but it’s hard to take that nod to feminism
seriously with that name, right?
Moonraker
dutifully checks off all the boxes for what audiences expected in a Bond film.
The film was directed by Lewis Gilbert – making his third, and final Bond film
– and he knows what he’s doing. But everything about the film feels just like
that – that everyone involved is checking off boxes. The song isn’t particularly
memorable – even if they brought Shirley Bassey for the third time, but no one
is going to confuse the song for Goldfinger. The film has more than a little
bit of a warmed over feel to it.
And yet,
it’s hard to deny that the film can be fun. Yes, at over two hours, it’s too
long, but when you take the film in the goofy spirit in which it was created,
it can be amusing – right up the infamous re-entry that ends the film. The film
is a goof – and is largely forgettable. It’s also a reminder that James Bond is
the longest film series in the world not necessarily because it’s always been
great, but because they just keep churning them out.
No comments:
Post a Comment