Review of Moonraker (1979) by Kieran F — 27 Mar 2011

I wouldn't say its the WORSE bond(there's WAY worse then this one) but its definitely the silliest. In a sense it was made in the same thinking of Live and let die, At the time of L&LD blackplotation films where the big thing so they thought they'd capitalize on that and...it work.Kinda. And for Moonraker it was just around the time of Star-Wars(it was released two years prior) and so they played up on the whole space thing and...it...didn't work %100 but it worked a little. I think the only real downer for the film wasn't so much the Idea behind it but the fact that it was...to..ahead of its time. Because it was the late 70's it felt really cool and etc to see these special affects. If you where to make it now a days it would probably be Ho-Hum and really would just be another film with...semi good CG.

The story of a stolen Space ship and Bond finding out that it wasn't really stolen but was instead made to look like it had been stolen so that it could be used as a 'transport ship'(Pardon the pun)was...okay and the addition of jaws was kinda unnecessary(He's a neat villain but did people REALLY think that he was that good to warrant having him back a second time?).

The acting is really quite good. The actors all seem...appropriate for the film to Like Drax was an interesting villain,I personally thought he was much better then Stromberg, He seemed menacing and even ACTED menacing. That scene where he gets his dogs to cold heartily take down that one woman was 10x better then anything Stromberg ever did(Stromberg was a good villain but..he never really lived up to all his menincing) Jaws coming back for a second time was...okay..but I really have trouble believing that he was that well received in TSWLM to come back a second time.

All in all I enjoy the film and as always Roger Moore delivered but.. I think that this film really just was kinda made to show case(At the time) what CG could do and follow the hype of space race type stories.(Star-wars,Blade Runner ETC.) Also the idea of all the "Safe Sex",You see the Russian girl pull out a condom and bond even is asked to use one,Was kinda beaten over the head. Yes at the time AIDS was ,and still is, a big problem but the bond films where suppose to be fun and by having the condoms and additions of semi safe sex talk was almost like it was a big public service announcement type film and was really unnecessary.

If this bond had been made years later I think it would've just been ho hum but because it was made at the time it was and (Even today)its still entertaining and still another good addition to the series.