Review of Moonraker (1979) by Vidyabum — 22 Oct 2021

Having watched 25 Bonds from Dr.No to Skyfall, I place Moonraker at 8/25.

Generally looked down as the epitome of Moore's Bond, an over the top, ultra-comedic, far too silly movie, I found Moonraker to be a great step up from its predecessor, The Spy Who Loved Me, from which it takes it main plot.

Moonraker is often chiefly remembered for its space battle where a bunch of plastic dolls fire very fake lasers over a black background.

And it shouldn't.

Moonraker is certainly that, and it is in many ways one of the silliest of the Moores, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own qualities:

- a villain with an actual style and presence, carried by an actor that carried the role beautifully.

- an overall solid direction and acting, where the actor scenes and the action scenes are equally well handled.

- a plot with proper stages that do not continuously contradict themselves.

- the second protagonist of this movie, Richard Kiel, aka Jaws.

The plot may be silly, but it is not shy of giving nice twists that do not require brain shutdown to be accepted.

The villain is a particularly strong point, because Bond can only be as good as the man he's trying to beat. Drax may have several quirks and may not look menacing, but he is unquestioningly smart, capable and several times brilliant. He acts odd, but establishes dominance several times and plays a good counterpart to Bond.

Jaws in this movie goes from a strange henchman in the last movie, to an almost protagonist. His little side story grows in importance in such a way that it ends up spilling over into the main plot, and it is both cute and well brought in, to the point that when his part in the movie ended, I said to my friend "well now I've lost 90% of the interest in this movie", but there was less than 10 minutes left.

The interaction, lines, direction, music, action, everything in this movie is at least decent, sometimes very good.

So yes, Moonraker is camp, yes it has people carrying French châteaux from France to the US, yes it has a radar that detects an unknown space shuttle at 12:36 and a shuttle of what I can only call Space Marines taking off in their own shuttle at 13:15 to intercept it, yes it has a giant man with silver teeth that eats cable car cables with the girth of a leg, yes it has Moore riding a gondola in the middle of an Italian plaza with the locals thinking they've gone mad, yes it has ninjas defending museums with wooden swords, yes it has all sorts of silly over the top parts, but that doesn't make it in the least bit bad. I was engaged by the characters and action much more than I thought I'd be, I found the villain interesting to fight, I found the story novel and fun to follow.

Moonraker is almost the campest of the camp, but unless you hate that, it is also a wonderfully engaging, well-made, and entertaining movie.