REVIEW: Moonraker

In This Issue: A-Movie Budget Meets Z-Movie Script. That's close enough to a B-Movie for this reviewer!

1963. A baccarat game. A beautiful woman. A tuxedo-ed man in a swirl of cigarette smoke. And the name that would start a movie series that has endured for four decades and counting...

"Bond... James Bond."

With that phrase, Sean Connery made his appearance in Dr No. For many, he WAS James Bond, and indeed he starred in some of the best Bond films ever made. Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, The Spy Who Loved Me ... but, with the fullness of time, a new actor was needed to take over the title role.

Roger Moore was somewhat of a contrast to both Sean Connery and Goerge Lazenby. (Who played Bond in the under-rated "On Her Majestys Secret Service") One of Englands best light comedians, his Bond was as likely to fire off a quip as his Walther PPK. As the series wore on, he became a punster, saddled with increasingly cartoonish villians and outlandish plots. Eventually, the mega-success of Star Wars led to part two of the Bond Lowpoint Double Feature, the first being The Man With The Golden Gun. Sensing the publics' new appetite for sci-fi, the studio quickly switched the order of upcoming Bond films. For Your Eyes Only, the next planned film was quickly replaced with

MOONRAKER (1979)

The usual opening shot gets us off and running. (Roger using a police-styled two-handed grip as he fires into the camera. I still consider Timothy Daltons' "walk-and-shoot" the most stylish... sorry, Sean, but that "Jump-and-fire" technique is a bit geeky for my taste...) Into the pre-credits teaser sequence we go. A 747 flies by, piggy-backing a space shuttle. The pilot reports their position as "15 minutes from the English coast"... remember that for later. However, inside the space shuttle, two men are strapping themselves into the pilot seats. (That would be a failing mark for the security on THIS flight...)

Before the crew know what's happening, they launch the shuttle, destroying the 747 in the backblast. (If I was being picky, I'd mention that space shuttles get the big blast from the attached booster rockets, not the shuttles engine itself. But, I'm not that picky. Yet.)

A quick cut takes us to MI6, where M demands to know 007's location. He's on a plane back from Africa, it seems. Where he's engaging in some tongue wrestling with a very accomodating stewardess. (That never happens to me... maybe I should upgrade to Business Class from time to time?) She's also armed with a handgun and in cahoots with the EVIL pilot, as it turns out. Their plan to bail out, leaving Bond in the airplane, (Which wouldn't work, as we all know Bond is an excellent pilot) turns into a rather cramped fistfight, before Bond rudely turfs the pilot out of hisplane. Seconds later, Bond himself is introduced to the concept of "freefall", courtesy of Jaws, the metal-toothed villan from "The Spy Who Loved Me." (Making me wonder about the TARDIS-like qualities of the plane... not that many places to hide a 7-foot tall psycho in, one feels.

The susbsequent mid-air fight scene as 007 plummets after the pilot and steals his parachute is probably the highlight of the film. (And highly reminiscent of the movie "Dropzone" to boot!) Jaws also joins the fray, accidently tearing off his ripcord in the process. His attempts to fly by flapping his arms proves ineffective, and he plunges to a messy death. Well, actually, he plunges into a circus tent, and survives. (I'd point out the minute chances of survival after hitting a canvas circus tent at 200kph if I was being picky...)

We cut to the Saul Bass title sequence (W/Shirley Bassey theme song.) Shots of earth from Space, naked trampoline girls, and what appears to be a nude shot of Supergirl abound. I notice that future Bond film director John Glen is editor on this one.

Post-credits, we head to England for the all-important briefing scene. M informs Bond that the 747 crashed in the Yukon. (Obviously, The Yukon has been relocated to a 15-minute flight from the British coast...) The shuttle was produced by "Drax Industries".. Hmm.. Drax? A super-villan name if I've ever heard one. Q issues Bond with a wrist-worn dart gun and one quick cut later we're in sunny California!

Once there, 007 is met by Drax's Sexpot Helicopter Pilot, who flies Bond to the Drax Industries Scale Model Estate. She tells him that Drax is "obsessed with the conquest of space", and has moved a French castle to California to live in. Hmmm, a non-English named conquest-obsessed man with a buttload of money. Yup, we've found our super-villan, folks! Bond gets to meet Drax, who has also imported a Stereotyped English Butler and a Very-Stereotyped EVIL Asian Manservant called Chang. He also posseses two large dobermans and an oddly ambigious accent. (We never do find out where Drax is supposed to hail from.

After Bond leaves, Drax sics Chang onto him, somewhat monotonically. (This will become a character trait... Drax shows as much emotion throughout the film as Steven Segal after a Valium.) Bond finds the research laboratory, leading to a scene that was a cliche by the mid-1950's.. the "Dr Goodhead? But you're a girl!" scene. (James Bond or "Jungle Hell"? You pick...) I should also point out that a Bond Girl called "Holly Goodhead" is getting close to scraping the bottom of the double entandre barrel. Even after "Plenty O'Toole" and "Pussy Galore"... She's on loan to Drax Industries from NASA. "The Space Agency", she helpfully adds. Well, duh.

A quick scenic tour later, she offer 007 a spin in the centrifugue trainer. "20G's is fatal... most people pass out at seven." she tells him. DeathTrap Alert! Sure enough, Chang arrives, and gets his one and only line. (Speaking like Tonto... "Kemo Sabe want speak with you, white woman. How." Or words to that effect, anyway...) He takes over the controls, and decides Bond needs MORE POWER! He cranks the spin cycle up to 7G's, whereupon Bond discovers his "chicken switch" has been disabled. Being British, he considers it unseemly to pass out, though, so Chang pumps up the volume. At 12G's 007 manages to activate his wrist-dart and hits.. something... it's actually shot so badly, I can't tell what it was supposed to be. Whatever it was, it works, bringing the centrifugue to a gentle halt. Holly returns just in time to haul Bond out, who staggers around for a few seconds to show the extent of his ordeal. Personally, if I took 12G's in a centrifugue, I'd fall over and blow chunks all over my Savoy Row suit, by then, I'm not James Bond...

Bond recovers enough to... uhh... "pump the pilot for information" that night. After giving her the Best of British, they do some post-coitial sneaking about. This allows Bond to show off his personalised "007" branded light/minicam and his Q-branch home X-ray kit. It's also an excellent chance for Chnag to spot the Sexpot Pilots' treachery. Guess who just became the Obligatory Sacrificial Lamb?

The next day, Drax is enjoying a fine mornings' pheasant hunt. He invites Bond to partake in the simple pleasure of slaughtering some of God's little creatures. (While sneaking a sniper into the trees.) Bond fires one shot, bagging the sniper effortlessly, of course. (Sniper Under Glass, anyone?) Drax looks put out at this turn of developments. (Psst, dude... that long metal thing in your hands is a "gun"... try shooting the Brit in the back next time he turns around... nope, too late, he's gone...) After 007 leaves, Drax terminates the pilots employment. (With the emphasism on "Terminate".) Now, I personally saw it coming, but the extended "woman gets chased by large slavering dogs" scene was a bit gratuitous... hell, Bond normally gets to find the body and look remorseful, at least. This time he probably never even knew he got the pilot killed...

On to Venice we go. Why? Ermmm.. search me... must have been something in the plans Bond found. He checks out a glass factory that's making components for Drax's shuttle. He's obviously in the right place, as Dr Goodhead is taking a tour of the same factory. (Small world, aint it?) The tour guide points out a vase worth "at least one million dollars". It's sitting on a pedastal, protected by a barely audible motion-sensor alarm. Must be protected by the same security company that oversaw the shuttle journey in the pre-credits sequence. Bond casually bumps into Dr Goodhead, and they wander along the canals. she's there to adress a Smuttily Named Scientist Convention, apparently. Bond takes his leave in a gondola, which seems a tad touristy to me.

But wait... here comes an funeral boat, along with some ominous music. The casket contains a knife-wielding internee, who takes out 007's gondalier. Bond quickly returns the favor, then cranks up the gondolas' high-powered outboard motor. (Yes, it's a Q-branch gondola!) Instantly, a spontaneous boat chase breaks out. Just as quickly, it turns into a sucession of slapstick jokes and sillyness. There's the lovers in a gondola who are so busy lip-locking they fail to notice their gondola has been sliced in twain by a motorbot. Next we see the smoking man who sees a floating coffin and spits out his butt. And then it just gets ludicrous. Bond hits a switch, converting his godola into a hovercraft. Which he drives through one of the busiest tourist spots in Venice. Way to keep a low-profile, Jimmy... might I remind you, you're a "secret" agent? (The "double-take" pigeon was a bad idea, too...)

Returning to the glass factory, 007 sneaks into Draxs' secret laboratory. (In one of the films' wittiest spots, the keypad locks' combination plays the five-note riff from "Close Encounters".) He watches two scientists fill vials with a clear liquid, and sneaks in to steal one. he accidently leaves on an unstable surface when he's disturbed. This proves bad for the scientists, as they proceed to smash the vial. Exunt two scientists, stage left.

Outside, Bond is suddenly ambushed by a Kendo Master(?), which seems odd, seeing as we're in Venice. Oh, wait, it's Chang again... boy, he gets around, doesn't he? The subsequent fight scene quickly moves into the glass factory, resulting in some major-league breakage. Bond does the old "bait-and-switch" as he saves the "Million Dollar Vase" (Settting off the oh-so-effective Annoying Buzzer of Protection) before replacing it on its pedestal for Chang to trash on his backswing. They take the fight into a warehouse, filled with cases helpfully marked "Rio De Janero". Is this James Bond, or Carmen Sandeigo? There they fight to an opera soundtrack provided by a conviently-placed group of musicians, before Chang takes a plunge that drives him head-first through a grand piano. (The shot was so Looney-Toony I expected him to smile, revealling a mouthful of piano keys for teeth...)

Fight scene over, Bond pays a call on Holly. It turns out she's packing all sorts of Neato Spy stuff too. (Poison Needle Pen, Flamethrower Perfume, Morse Code Purse, etc.) James calls it "Standard CIA equipment"... yeahhhh, right. It would explain where all those tax dollars go, huh Americanos?) Just for the hell of it, Bond and Holly decide to prove that James' upper lip isn't the only stiff thing about him. The next morning, Holly nicks off to Rio as 007 calls in M to the secret lab. It's been inexplicably replaced by a palatial room, containing nothing but a desk, four chairs, and Hugo Drax. How this act of architectural impossibility was acheived is never explained. Probably even the scriptwriter doesn't know.

As 007 takes the Concorde to Rio, (Do Air France regularly fly their concordes between Venice and Rio?) Drax brings in Jaws to replace Chang as Chief Heavy With One Line In The Entire Movie. (More on that later.) In Rio, Bond is followed by "Stands-Out-Like-A-Sore-Thumb" lady. (Driving the biggest car in the Southern Hemisphere, just so she can be SURE he spotted her.) Bond loses her, only to find her tending the bar in his Presidential suite. Boy, can she drive QUICK! She's Manuela, who seems to be in the movie simply to provide some exposition, give James someone else to shag and later on get menaced by Jaws. Gotta love the challenging parts...

They set out to break into one of Draxs' warehouses. To add local flavor, the Samba festival has been resceduled for Bonds' arrival. (Either that, or it's summer in both hemispheres' at once.) Bond discovers the warehouse is totally empty. Well, not totally. The only thing left is a logo for Drax Air Freight. (Missing only a flashing neon light next to it that reads "CLUE!") That's on a par with Moriaty sending Sherlock Holmes a note telling him where he's about to commit his next crime. The aforementioned "Manuela-menacing" scene occurs, with Jaws only being prevented from tearing out her throat by the arrival of a crowd of drunken samba freaks. Bond comes to the rescue, we get ready for a fight scene... and the Rent-a-Crowd returns, seperating the two before a punch has been thrown. Damn it! Where's my gratuitous testosterone-enhancing violence?

The next day, Bond takes the cable car up into the mountains. In deference to Rios' sweltering heat, he's actually removed his tie. Whoa, steady on James, you wild thing, you! While spying on Draxs' planes, he spots Dr Goodhead, who's doing like wise. Boy, what are the odds? These two couldn't run into each other more if they were attached by bunji cords! The coincidences keep on coming, as Jaws shows up as well. With the help of an accomplice, he stops Bonds' cablecar halfway down the mountain, before climbing down the cable to join them. A fight scene breaks out, although the obvious rear-projection shots, coupled with the VERY long-distance shots of stuntmen grappling on the actual cable car means there's nothing to get overly excited about. Bond and Goodhead escape by sliding down the cables, leaving Jaws to take a high-velocity ride into the cablecar building at the bottom of the mountain. From which he walks away unscathed, of course. He also meets up with a demented-looking woman with gigantic Heidi pigtails. The sudden swirl of violins cues us to the fact that Jaws and her are instantly in love. Whatever.

Meanwhile, Bond and Goodhead are swiftly kidnapped by Evil EMT's. (Very swiftly. I mean, they arrive less than 90 seconds after they leap from the cable. Drax must keep his henchmen on call, 24/7...) Luckily, they prove to be the most imcompetant henchmen in a genre packed with bad henchmen. Bozo Henchman not only ties Bond to a gunrney with easily-detachable handles, but is then distracted by having Goodhead SMILE at him. Bond escapes, though he does leave Goodhead behind. No worries, James, you'll proably run into her in Tahiti, or the Gobi Desert... or whever the ever-accomodating scriptwriter feels like, really...

Cut to Bond, riding... somewhere. In full gaucho get-up. To the Magnificant Seven theme. Amusing, though confusing. He arrives at a monastary full of Kung-Fu Monks. It's Q and company, of course. We see a Q-brancher trialing explosive bolas... and a laser. (Foreshadowing, foreshadowing...) Q has identified the liquid 007 found in Venice as a highly toxic nerve gas. (I would have thought the scientists' swift deaths might have clued Bond in on that already, but that's just me being picky...) Oddly, the gas affects humans, but not animals. (Once again, I feel picky enough to note that humans should in fact be classified as animals... unless our opposable thumbs somehow make us more vulnerable to nerve gas? I really have to ask Liz at "And You Call Yourself a Scientist" to check this flick out...) The nerve gas is extracted from an Amazonian orchid, so James heads up-river in the Q-Boat. Drax is now hiring Pyschi Henchmen, as he's not out there for more than a few minutes before a fleet of mortar-equipped motorboats are chasing him.

Bonds boat is packed with gadgets of cousre, and he gets to use nearly all of them during the chase. (Which is pretty damn good, incidently.) Bond drops some mones to destroy one boat. (Leaving lots of unexploded ones floating around, I might add. I'm picturing an unexpected end to a fishing trip for some unsuspecting Amazonian Indian...) He torpedos another, before launching himself skyward on a hanglider. (What the heck happened to those? You just never see them around any more...) Jaws is so surprised by this sight (Despite being located in front of a terribly obvious rear-projection screen at the time) he drives his boat off a gigantic waterfall. I think he's offically become Wile E. Jaws at this point.

007 handglides to a clearing. Despite being in impenetrable jungle, he instantly finds a woman. (Not Holly Goodhead, but I'm sure she's around here somewhere.) She leads him to an ancient Inca temple. Or at least, a slightly unconvincinmg set. We learn that the ancient Incas had a thing for stainless steel bridges, although I'm guessing that was due to Drax Renovations, Inc. Bond should be having flashbacks, as the exact same bridge spanned the shark pit in "The Spy Who Loved Me". Sure enough, Bond is quickly swimming with an anaconda. He just as quickle dispatches it with Dr Goodheads' poison pen. Well, that ate up some running time. Post-swim, he's captured by Jaws and dragged off to see Drax. (Both Jaws and Bond seem to be wearing Insta-Dry Clothing, by the way. Or am I being picky?) Drax runs through some monotonic exposition as his evil hench-crew launch four "Moonrakers"... read, the space shuttles. Despite having dozens of armed guards around, he orders Bond to be imprisoned with Dr Goodhead in a room directly beneath Moonraker Fives' engines. Saying a wooden goodbye, he instantly teleports into his shuttle. (I swear to God! He leaves, Bond takes three steps and suddenly we're seeing Drax getting settled in his seat. The Voohees Unreality Engine at work, perhaps?)

Bond promptly escapes the room through an air-vent, and manages to out-crawl the engine blast of the shuttle.

I'll repeat that, adding a slightly-censored expletive, because I still can't believe I was forced to write it.

Bond OUT-CRAWLS a f@#$%&g blast from the shuttles main engines!

Ummm.. I know that the film was made in 1979, but has anyone here ever watched a shuttle launch? Or the Apollo moon rocket launches from the 60's? Notice how the nearest building to the platform is around 5 KILOMETERS away? To be blunt, if Bond HAD tried to crawl away from the blast, they'd have scraped him off the walls of the air vent with a wire brush...

But back to the plot. Since Drax is already in orbit, the only way to get to the Big Climax of the picture is for Bond to take out the crew of Moonraker 6 and take their place at the controls. Gosh, I hear you say... James Bond knows how to fly a space shuttle? No need, as it's on full auto-pilot. (I KNEW those layabouts at NASA were getting overpaid for nothing!) The sillyness increases by the simple fact that the crew is giving the 10-second countdown, while James and Holly are still climbing into their surprisingly spacious seats. (That and the fact that neither the crew or the passengers have been provided with helmets, space suits.. or even seatbelts!)

Winthin minutes we're in orbit. (It'd be picky to point out that the rocket booster shouldn't have fallen straight downwards when it detaches.... but I will.) The six Moonrakers fly to a mammoth moon.. wait, that's no moon! It's a space station! (Couldn't resist it...) They must have started construction around 1960 or so on this baby. (If the progress on the International Space Station is any sort of a guide.) Holly realises the space station doesn't register on radar. "So no-one on Earth knows its here", muses Bond. Yup, except maybe anyone who owns a telescope, James. And the several thousand workers it must have needed to build. In a special effects scene that recalls "Thunderbirds" in it's execution, the Moonrakers dock. One crewman floats out in zero-g (Untethered!) to switch on the artificial gravity. He also demonstrates the little-seen "walking and sitting in zero-gravity conditions" trick. (Just being picky.)

The Generic Henchpeople disembark, including Jaws and Heidi. Drax appears to make a long, rambling speech about his plans. Post-monologue, James and Holly decide to shut off the radar jammer. (Luckily, the station comes complete with handy "You Are Here" maps.) Passing through a zero-gravity corridor, (Yes, parts of the station are zero-gravity... why? IITS!) they take out the two bonehead techies with some Brit Fu and Chick Fu respectivly. They disable the jammer, allowing the US Military to remove their thumbs from their rear ends and spot the station. They spring into action, launching a shuttle in about 20 minutes. (Beating NASA's best time by... ooooh, about six months or so. And can I be picky here and say... They launch space shuttles from Vandenberg Air force Base? Yeeeeah, right!)

As this happens, Drax launches the first of his nerve-gas laden probes into space. Jaws suddenly arrives to capture Bond and Holly after an ultra-brief fight. Bond should know not to punch Jaws in the teeth by now. (How Jaws discovered them on the base is never explained, by the way. Drax doesn't even know his radar jammer is off-line yet...) Drax obligingly tells Bond his entire plan, of course. (Wipe out all humans on Earth, then repopulate it with his "master race".) He launches another globe, as his crew finally notices the approaching US shuttle. "Stand by to laser it!" he orders. Uhh, is that the best way of phrasing that, Drax? Once again, despite his hordes of laser-weilding guards, he orders Jaws to throw our heros out the airlock. Bond quickly plays the "master race" card, head-faking Jaws as Drax admits anyone not reaching his standards of perfection will be eliminated. One quick glance at Pippi Geekstockings, and Jaws is kicking butt for the good guys.

Bond hits the Conviently-Located Emergency stop button, bringing the space station to a screeching halt. (Well, no screech of brakes, so that's one point in favor of realism. That makes it 243-1 to the cartoonish so far, with 15 minutes to go.) One Mass Zero-G/Slow-Mo Walking scene later, Drax releases his Space Troopers for the climatically silly battle in space. (This is the moment that space suddenly conducts sound, of course... earlier the shuttles at least glided silently to to the station.) A third globe is launched during the fray, before a huge laser donnybrook breaks loose inside the station. (Strangley, firing lasers in one area of a space station has the unexpected effect of causing the entire thing to slowly begin to break up. Must be the "Always Destroy The Villans Final Hideout" law in effect.) Drax flees, but Bond catches up with him and delivers the double-whammy of a cyanide dart, plus a one-way trip out the airlock. Geez, Drax even DIES in a monotone!

With the head honcho smoked, Bond and Holly attempt to evacuate the rapidly-disentergrating space station. Jaws and Heidi, meanwhile are enjoying a glass of champagne. (The bottle and glasses lying unbroken amongst the debris of the firefight. Right-o...) Jaws gets his one line "Well, here's to us."... proving to have a fairly soft-spken delivery. No wonder he never talked! Pieces of the station are now flying every which way, but the main room still has gravity and oxygen. (Unlike, say... MIR) Jaws helpfully aids Bonds' shuttle to launch, before the section he's in detaches and whirls off into space. "They'll be all right... it's only a hundred miles to Earth" Bond quips. Uh, yeah, James... 100 miles DOWNWARDS! (Not to worry, we later hear they've been rescued by the US shuttle. How? Stop asking me these questions, I don't know! Ask the scriptwriter!

Anyhoo, Bond flies off in pursuit of the Killer Globes. (His once-silent shuttle is now making the sound of a 747 as it flies. So I'm picky. Sue me.) Despite the first globe being launched 20 minutes ago, he catches up with all three in about 90 seconds. Damn he's good!

It's the Big Showdown, folks! Will he stop the nerve gas! Can he destroy all three globes with the shuttles laser or not? (SPOILER: Well, of course he does, he's James Bond, you schmuck!) He does miss twice on the third globe, making me wonder where the stray laser blasts ended up. Maybe if we're lucky, they took out Cleveland...

And so, after this not-overly tense sequence, Jame and Holly have a farewell shag, Q delivers the final pun, ("I think he's attempting re-entry...") and we're done.

Skeeters Analysis:

The Highs:

The Amazon Boat Chase
The Parachute Teaser
And that's about it, really...

The Lows:

A Total Lack of Logic
Stupid Death Traps
and A Bland Super-Villan

Body Bags: I lost count... no blood, of course, but buttloads of dead henchmen.
Nudity: Zippo. A little bit of Hollys back, if you're desperate.

After this, For Your Eyes Only got the series back on track, with a solid story and well-defined characters. Thankfully, or else this one could have killed the Bond series dead in it's tracks.