Review of Moonraker (1979) by James S — 08 Aug 2009

Bond becomes predictable...begin with lady attempting to betray him, go into plot, Bond gets involved, lady no like, lady do like, resolve conflict, officials manage to see Bond & lady making whoopie. Predictable, but fun, nevertheless. The Moore Bond series were meant to be light entertainment with little heavy material. This particular film started with what may be the coolest stunt ever...a fight for a parachute filmed in mid air.

The production staff decided to make this movie instead of For Your Eyes Only in order to take advantage of the Star Wars/Star Trek movie trend (re-mi-sol-do-do was important in Close Encounters and this movie as well).

As fun as this movie is, a few things got in the way that even the most loyal Bond fanatic should have noticed. #1: Bad guy Drax went after Bond immediately, which was an incredibly dumb move since Drax had the upper hand since his shuttle dissappeared while under British watch (silly Brits). #2: blazing technichal errors in the world of science. #3: Although Lois Chiles looked the part as well as any Bond girl, her performance was about as stale as a performance could get.

I will say that the opening stunt, the return of Jaws, the many locations, and the space/Earth backdrop were all top notched and gave the film a great look. Too bad...one re-write and one casting error away from a very good film.