Review of Moonraker (1979) by Richard R — 10 May 2011

The eleventh James Bond film, and arguably one of the worst. Originally this was supposed to be "For Your Eyes Only", but because of the worldwide phenomenon of "Star Wars" in 1977, the Bond producers felt they needed to send 007 into space. It's the third and final Bond film directed by Lewis Gilbert (You Only Live Twice/The Spy Who Loved Me).

Once again 007 (Roger Moore) is sent to save the day after the Moonraker Space Shuttle mysteriously disappears. The trail leads Bond to California and the billionaire who built the shuttle, Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale). While there 007 meets Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), who is actually a CIA agent investigating Drax on her own. From there Bond travels to Venice and then to Rio de Janeiro in his pursuit of Drax and encounters an old nemeses along the way, the seemingly indestructible assassin Jaws (Richard Kiel). Then to stop Drax's plans to destroy the human population of the world using a deadly gas distributed in the atmosphere using several Moonraker Space Shuttles, 007 must battle Drax in orbit around the Earth on Drax's space station.

Nothing is memorable about this Bond film, the main villain Hugo Drax (Lonsdale) is too low key, and the Bond girl, Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) is very forgettable and bland. This is the first sign that the Bond franchise has the possibility to go way too far over the top with the story, and action.