Moonraker (1979) Reviews

• Criminally underrated Roger Moore's James Bond 007 flick my second favorite

  ivo-cobra82017-11-05

  Moonraker (1979) is criminally underrated and bashed by Bond fans and I know everyone is going to disagree with me. This is my second favorite James Bond 007 film and in my opinion not yours Roger Moore's best film. This is the eleventh spy film in the James Bond series to be produced by Eon Productions, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Cléry, and Richard Kiel. This film has so much action, action, action, action all the time. It has beautiful girls, climatic battle fights with laser guns in outer space, Bond jumps off the plane without parachute. Climatic fight between Bond, Holly Goodhead and Jaws on the Cable Car in Sugarloaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro. I love this film to death I grew up with this film and it is my favorite. I'm a hard-core James Bond fan. I make no apologies for believing that even the late Roger Moore is the closest thing we've seen to IAN FLEMING's James Bond. Since I was a kid I have really enjoyed this film, I have enjoy it in high school and I still do till it's day. I know a lot of people's is at least favorite Bond film because it is science fiction film it is set in space. James Bond 007 in outer space is a bad idea because in 1977 Star Wars come out and they were so popular that they decide to make this film, I don't mind it. James Bond investigates the mid-air theft of a space shuttle, and discovers a plot to commit global genocide. Roger Moore in my opinion is the most underrated James Bond 007 ever and I have more respect then i would have a respect to a morons like Daniel Craig I hate the new James Bond! Roger Moore R.I.P. I really miss you I am long time loving fan of you. Thank you for your visiting Slovenia in 2000 I have so much respect for you. My condolences to his family. Star Trek was so popular even the movies and the show and I don't like em I hated the reboot they made and I still hate Star Trek movies but I love this movie so much it is in space like only 45 minutes and even that wasn't that bad. This is the sequel to The Spy Who Loved Me Richard Kiel reprise his role as Jaws from the film The Spy Who Loved Me and it was the last film Lewis Gilbert directed. Jaws returns in "Moonraker" and adds some tension to the film… Richard Kiel has become something of a cult figure since his appearance in 'The Spy Who Loved Me'. He reappears as indestructible as ever. His performance was beautiful and wonderful even for the comedic effect than in The Spy Who Loved Me. Why is my favorite and why I love it so much: I love the filming locations the film was set from California to Venice, Italy to Brazil Rio de Janeiro to Amazon River to Drax base in Iguazu Falls I love this film. This movie has so much beautiful girls you see so many blond girls in this film I feel like this movie set Supergirl. You have a great boat chase on the Amazon River it is fantastic Bond blows up the assassins with a mine. Bond fights with a python in the river Drax's base. Honesty I think Conan The Barbarian copied from this movie the scene about Python fight. Bond fights off Drax henchman Chang (Toshiro Suga). Bond throws knife in the assassin in Venice river and flees with his own boat. Great direction from Lewis Gilbert I am so proud on the director that he filmed this film in Venice, Italy in the city in which my mom visited. Great music score from Shirley Bassey - Moonraker and John Barry did a wonderful score for the James Bond film. Michael Lonsdale's performance is astonishingly controlled and precise as Hugo Drax... There's something really scary about his true personality and character... He gives sarcastic remarks about 007: 'You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.' 'At least I shall have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery!' 'Mr. Bond, you persist in defying my efforts to provide an amusing death for you.' Lois Chiles is a great and the finest Bond girl, the irresistible Holly Goodhead: A CIA agent and astronaut who joins Bond and flies with him to Drax's space station. She was really sexy and beautiful all tough I prefer Drax's astronaut girls way better cause they were so blond. 10/10 Moonraker to me is way better then Skyfall, Spectre, Quantum of Solace, The World is not Enough, Die Another Day, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and even more Bond films I dislike. This is the most underrated film I have ever seen. 10/10 Grade: Bad-Ass Seal Of Approval Studio: Eon Productions, MGM/UA Communications Company Starring: Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Richard Kiel, Corinne Cléry, Toshiro Suga Director: Lewis Gilbert Screenplay: Christopher Wood Producer: Albert R. Broccoli Based on Moonraker by Ian Fleming Rated: PG Running Time: 2 Hrs. 06 Mins. Budget: $34.000.000 Box Office: $210,308,099

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• Likable Roger Moore in an amazing adventure set on exterior space

  ma-cortes2010-11-29

  Roger Moore's entry in which faces dangerous adventures around the world . Moore's outing with overwhelming action and spectacular scenarios , the film teams Bond with an American agent (gorgeous Lois Chiles) in an effort to stop an industrialist from destroying the surface world so he can rule an outland kingdom . After his first introduction in ¨Live and let die¨ as tough and attractive James Bond of the Ian Fleming's famous creation , Roger Moore went on playing various 007 , and ¨Moonraker¨ is one of the best . The picture starts with an overblown free-fall opening , the best part of this film and introducing a giant villain (Richard Kiel who will repeat in subsequent entry). This Bond film deals about seductive James Bond OO7 as the ultimate spy hero who is assigned by MI6 a dangerous mission pursuing an intergalactic mad man (Michael Lonsdale in a potentially sinister presence as the head baddie) . Meanwhile , Bond goes to Venice there happens a high-octane race and Bond discovers clues in Rio De Janeiro. James is double-crossed and continues to follow the lead , deciding to investigate in Amazonas . Following the tracks all lead a nasty billionaire , a maniacal villain who schemes a world conspiracy. Roger Moore as James Bond is cool , he does remarkably well , he earns in irony, suavity and sympathy, however also has coldness ,cunning , intelligence and toughness . Here Bond is an efficient , relentless agent trying to chase obstinately the criminals , traveling around the world as always , as this globe-trotting story is set in England ,America, Venice, Amazonas , Rio De Janeiro and exterior space . Bond to achieve his aims , along the way uses violent means even pulling off brutal killings against enemies who wreak all sorts of havoc . As always Bond will use gadgets provided by ¨Q¨ (Desmond Llewelyn) . In addition , there appears the usual as Lois Maxwell, ¨MoneyPenny¨ , Sir Gray as Geoffrey Keen , Walter Goetell as Russian general and Bernard Lee's last appearance as ¨M¨ . The picture contains comic-strip adventure , sensational pursuits , silly set pieces, great stunts, tongue-in check humor, frantic action packed , amazing gimmicks and stimulating images like are the happenings on the spectacular races, the breathtaking aerial scenes, and the spacial fights . As is like a roller-coaster , as is fast-paced, light, excitement, funny and entertaining ; it's a winner for oo7 fans and non-fans alike . The chase and suspense formula wears strong in this entry .Enjoyable title song by Shirley Bassey and stirring musical score fitting to action by the usual composer, the classic John Barry . Riveting and fancy main titles by habitual Maurice Binder , furthermore eye-popping production design by Ken Adam . It's brimming with colorful and fascinating cinematography by cameraman Jean Tournier. The motion picture produced by habitual producers, Albert R Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson , being professionally directed by Lewis Gilbert who directed various outings though with no originality . Director Gilbert keeps this moving at an incredibly fast pace and this story about every's favorite super-spy falling in love with a CIA agent is one of author Ian Fleming's best . The film will appeal to James Bond series's buffs but good for fans only ; because this one goes on far too long . Rating : 6'5 , well worth watching .

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• The most visually striking 007 ever made

  Maciste_Brother2007-06-17

  Of all the Bond films, MOONRAKER is, imo, the most visually striking of the entire series. It looks like it cost a billion bucks to make. The sets by Ken Adams are amazing (he should have won an Oscar for them). The locations are stunning. The fx are well made and still hold up today. The women are above average gorgeous (they all look like supermodels before supermodels were in). All of this beautifully filmed by cinematographer Jean Tournier. I love watching MOONRAKER just because it's so damn gorgeous to look at. I don't know how many times I saw it at the movies when it came out just to appreciate the beauty of it all. Unfortunately, we are talking about a James Bond film and of course there has to be the usual formulaic stuff seen in every other James Bond film. Basically, MOONRAKER is a remake of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. I always preferred MOONRAKER over the schintzy SPY WHO LOVED ME, which was made just before this one. Lewis Gilbert directed those three Bond films and MOONRAKER is his crowning achievement. Personally speaking, Gilbert is a bad director. His films are always bloated and sorta soulless and yet still gorgeous. Aside from his Bond films, he rarely made an impression with his other films. In fact, he's the one who directed THE ADVENTURERS, which is a good looking film but it's really, really awful. I'm glad Gilbert stopped making Bond films. He was always too laid back for action films like this. There ARE a lot of memorable scenes in MOONRAKER: the entire intro is now a classic and much better than the one in SWLM. Corinne being chased by dogs. The simulator scene. Bond fighting with Chang in Venice. My favorite scene is when Bond and Goodhead are stuck below a shuttle's rockets and are about to be burned alive. A near perfect action moment there. The climax in space is fun if improbable. I love the scene when they have to destroy those globes as they re-enter the atmosphere. Really suspenseful. But as good as those scenes are individually they almost don't register as a whole because the story and direction are so lackadaisical, so relax. It's like everyone was on vacation. There's absolutely no grit to this film. It's really sleek and smooth but nearly bite-less. The whole story seems to be just a preamble to the action set in space. What really stands out about MOONRAKER are the many long moments with no dialogue. I'd say about 50 to 60% of the film has no dialogue. Just music and sound effects. It's almost a silent film. Moore didn't have a lot of dialogue to remember and this was an easy film to dub. The story is as easy as connect-the-dots: The British owned Moonraker 5 disappears in mid-air and 007 is sent to California to investigate its disappearance. At the Moonraker plant in California (France really) Bond find blueprints of vials which leads him to Venice, where the vials are fabricated. And from Venice Bond goes to Brazil where the vials, filled with deadly nerve gas, are shipped to the underground layout of Drax (boringly played by the usually reliable Michael Lonsdale. Love the name "Drax" though). Oh and we learn that Drax wants to create a new race of super humans by killing everyone on earth by dropping those nerve gas filled globes from space while Drax and his super humans reside in Drax's space station. I actually like that part of the story and some of the grandeur of it (Drax wanting to be God) is actually achieved with the striking visuals and the amazingly lush score by the brilliant John Barry. Unfortunately, again, this is a James Bond film and thought provoking ideas are set aside for formulaic action. I wish this wasn't a James Bond film. Take away all the Bond elements, the stupid humor, flesh out the screenplay and this would be a spectacular kick ass science fiction film. Anyway, back to James Bond. I really like Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead. She's my favorite Bond girl ever. Beautiful and sophisticated but tough. She's no bimbo. I remember a lot of my friends in school didn't like her because they thought she was too tough for a babe. I guess Holly Goodhead was Girl Power before Girl Power was in. For me, Chiles epitomizes everything chic and sexy about the late 1970s. She's unforgettable in that black jumpsuit. But the Holly Goodhead role is a really badly written one. She's almost an afterthought to the whole story. They basically needed a character to fly the space shuttle and Bond into space (something 007 obviously couldn't do) and Goodhead was basically that: just a pilot. Then there's Corinne Clery who is truly gorgeous but sadly, again, her role is minimal. Then there's the not so beautiful Jaws. Jaws was so popular in SPY WHO LOVED ME they brought him back here. I don't mind this but they turned him into a good guy and he even falls in love with a ditsy girl. This part of MOONRAKER is *really* bad. Someone should completely edit that storyline out of the movie and its rating would go up exponentially. And like in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, the musical in-jokes were needlessly distracting. These bad aspects about MOONRAKER are almost negligible though because the film is such a visual (and aural) feast. Whether it's one of the best or worst of the series, I really don't care. I can positively state though that this is THE best looking Bond film ever, with an actually cool science fiction story somewhere in it. I give MOONRAKER 10 stars for the look of it all but 5 stars for the laid back and sometimes silly direction. So an average of 7 stars.

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• Experience the sheer magnificence of Q's final line!

  Nazi_Fighter_David2005-07-11

  When a Moonraker space shuttle, on loan from the United States to England, is hijacked, Bond is called in to investigate... Bond surely possess the latest knowledge about nuclear power and is able to fly a rocket ship... Bond's girls too have moved with the times and now join battle alongside him, fighting off the enemy with equal proficiency... It's nice to see Bond dressed as a Brazilian gaucho, galloping up to a 16th-century Benedictine monastery, and safecracking in a magnificent French château... Roger Moore is seen humorous and light hearted, gliding through St. Mark's Square in his motorized gondola... He fights with a Chinese manservant in the Venice Glass Museum with great style, and stops himself from throwing a priceless bowl valued at £1 million... He takes out one speedboat with some mines, another with a torpedo and takes off on a hang-glider as his boat goes over the falls... Bond was initially surprised that a top rocket scientist at Drax Industries was an attractive young woman… He set aside his aggressive attitudes when he realized that not only was Holly a fully trained astronaut on loan from NASA—she was also a CIA agent… She liked better working alone and he had to exhaust himself to win her over… The eleventh Bond film seems to recycle a number of elements familiar from earlier adventures, most obviously Stromberg's hired killer, Jaws, played once again by Richard Kiel... Hugo Drax, the vengeful ex-Nazi of Fleming's novel, is reinvented as a psychotic who is obsessed with the conquest of space, and plans to wipe out the globe's population with a powerful type of nerve gas... His plan for mass murder completed, Drax will then repopulate the planet with his own master race… His fleet of shuttles—the Moonrakers—which are based in South America, will transport his master race into space… There they will live on a radar-invisible space station until Earth's depopulation has been completed… Drax likes to play a little Chopin on his grand black piano, and enjoys a cucumber sandwich... His vanity leads him to control his ferocious hounds by the click of his fingers… He brings from France every block of stone used on his California residence... According to his charming pilot, "What he doesn't own, he doesn't want!" and, like Auric Goldfinger, affects a desire to play English country sports... Michael Lonsdale's performance is astonishingly controlled and precise as Hugo Drax... There's something really scary about his true personality and character... He gives sarcastic remarks about 007: 'You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.' 'At least I shall have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery!' 'Mr. Bond, you persist in defying my efforts to provide an amusing death for you.' Jaws returns in "Moonraker" and adds some tension to the film… Richard Kiel has become something of a cult figure since his appearance in 'The Spy Who Loved Me'. He reappears as indestructible as ever... He impersonates Christopher Lee in Dracula mode, and has an entirely different trip down a mountain... His little scenes with a cute little blonde girl are very sweet... His despairing search for her on the disintegrating space station is wonderful... The bitter little smile he and Bond share as they prepare for their set-to atop the cable car is inspired... Corinne Dufour (Corinne Clery) becomes one of Bond's early bedmates… Corinne is Hugo Drax's beautiful helicopter pilot and executive assistant… Unfortunately, in Drax's eyes, her amorous byplay with Bond also marks her for early elimination... Sadly, 'Moonraker' would mark the end of Bernard Lee's 45-year film career... Already visibly frail, Lee would succumb to stomach cancer; he died in London's Royal Free Hospital on 16 January 1981... Although he made a notable contribution to such outstanding mystery dramas as Carol Reed's 'The Third Man,' and Basil Dearden's 'The Blue Lamp,' it is for his definitive 'M' that he will be remembered...

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• I LOVE IT!!!

  eamon-hennedy2004-03-24

  Please, don't judge me too harshly, but I love Moonraker, the peak of all things Roger Moore. Never again would the Bond films be this over the top or overtly silly, but the truth is that Moonraker does it right. It will never win awards for being the most subtle Bond film ever made, but it should not be trashed in the way that it usually is because deep down Moonraker is just great fun. Roger Moore's Bond is just fun to be with, the on going joke that everytime Jaws tries to kill Bond he almost gets killed himself, complete with close ups of his exasperated face are brilliant (not subtle, but guaranteed to get you chuckling) and one of the loveliest Bond girls, CIA agent Holly Goodhead. The script here is definitely not in the same league as the likes of From Russia With Love, The World is Not Enough, Licence to Kill or For Your Eyes Only, but Bond films never set out to be thought provoking pieces of art, they are meant to be grandiose fun pieces of entertainment and if you take Bond films on those levels then Moonraker succeeds admirably. Sure none of the acting is award worthy, and its frequently over the top in every regard. Over the top humor, over the top action sequences (a fight scene in a glass shop sees every bit of glass get destroyed) while the space sequences features a gigantic space battle complete with laser beams. However there is a lot to like here. The pre title sequence is superb, featuring some of the best stunt work you will ever see in a pre-Brosnan Bond, the special effects are magnificent and lastly John Barry's music is quite simply the best he has ever come up with. For a film so over the top his music is beautiful and would set the hallmarks for his future scores. The sweeping orchestra and beautiful theme song by Shirley Bassey are classics. Once again I end my review with a note not to judge me, but Moonraker is simply wonderful entertainment and one of my favorite Bond film of all time.

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