Moonraker (1979)

Welcome back to my James Bond marathon!  Today, we'll be reviewing another favorite film of mine, Moonraker (1979)!  This is the 11th official Bond film (and 13th overall I've reviewed so far).

SYNOPSIS:
Drax Industries' Moonraker shuttle is hijacked right off the back of a plane mid-flight!  James Bond (Roger Moore) is sent to investigate the missing space shuttle and uncovers a horrifying plot of global extinction levels!

REVIEW:
This film was a spectacular show, taking advantage of the popular space genre that Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) had just brought to the big screen 2 years prior.  Despite being a James Bond film, this story stretched the limits of imagination, making a pseudo-futuristic world, funded by one of the richest men in the world, Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale).

The Moonraker base looks straight out of a sci-fi film!  Wait...

By the way, there will be spoilers in this review.  It's hard to explain the sci-fi elements without giving away big plot points, so consider yourself warned.

This film has one of my favorite opening scenes.  Bond is en route to England by private plane when the pilot adorns a parachute and shoots the controls, leaving Bond to crash and burn.  Bond attempts to fight with him and nearly gets pushed out of the plane, but manages to throw the pilot out instead.  While Bond is looking out after him, Jaws (Richard Kiel) shows up behind Bond and shoves him out!  Falling without a parachute, Bond realizes he must pursue the pilot through the air.  And so ensues a tense struggle where Bond must steal a parachute while plummeting toward Earth.  It's further made tense by the metal-toothed Jaws jumping out after him and joining the fight.

Jaws after shoving Bond out of a plane without a parachute

By the way, Jaws is a lot more cartoony in this film than the previous one (The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)).  For instance, this scene has Jaws falling onto a circus tent without deploying his parachute, which he survives just fine.  He has a habit of not knowing his own strength and breaking things, leading to destruction.

Jaws, after crashing through an entire building: "T'is only a flesh wound!"

Jaws also meets a girl in this film!  While struggling to un-bury himself from a collapsed building, a blonde pig-tailed girl named Dolly (Blanche Ravalec) emerges and helps to free him.  Without a word, the two smile lovingly at each other.  From that moment on, they're inseparable.  By the way, there's an interesting Mandela effect with this scene.  Most people who have previously watched this film insist that after Jaws flashes a metal-toothed grin at Dolly, she flashes a toothy smile of braces back.  But apparently, this never happened.  She's never had braces.

No braces, see?  It never happened!  Although it would've been perfect if it had...

Q gives James Bond a new "standard issue" weapon, a wrist dart gun that can shoot armor-piercing or envenomed darts.  Throughout the film Bond also makes use of a mini camera with 007 emblazoned on the front, and a Seiko watch that has an explosive charge and a wire hidden under its face.  Bond also makes use of a Venetian canal gondola with hidden motor, that can convert into a hovercraft for an escape on land.  Bond also makes use of a speedboat with a hidden hang-glider.  All of these gadgets were issued by Q-Branch; although Q himself doesn't hand any except the wrist dart gun.  But we do witness Q-Branch testing a Moonraker laser rifle.

Bond also meets up with Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) at Drax Industries, a scientist who works for Drax, but Bond discovers she's CIA working undercover.  The two end up investigating Drax together, leading them to a hidden Aztec temple deep in the Amazon.  There, they find Drax launching shuttles into space!  This Aztec temple and its space station were used in the GoldenEye 007 video game for the Nintendo 64.  Having played that game first before seeing the film, I was surprised when I suddenly recognized their control room.

I knew I've seen this room before!

Boarding a shuttle, Bond and Dr. Goodhead are launched into space, where they discover a massive space station, cloaked from radar.  They discover Drax's master plan - to launch pods all over the world that will disperse a chemical lethal to humans but harmless to all other life.  His space station is filled with what he deems are the perfect genetic specimens.  He plans to repopulate the planet with his own perfect samples of humanity.  Bond gets him to admit in front of Jaws that anyone not living up to his perfect genetic standard will be killed.  Jaws, a lumbering giant, doesn't like the sound of that, and turns on his boss, teaming up with Bond to stop the mission.

"Genetically perfect" specimens, aboard a futuristic ark

After successfully jamming the space station's radar, the US government notices the giant space station and responds by... sending Space Marines to fight it.  That's right; Space Marines are the US's solution to a mysterious space station.  Oh, and they're armed with the Moonraker laser rifles that Q-Branch was testing.  And so begins an all-out space war, culminating in the destruction of the space station.

US Space Marines! Fuck Yeah!

Sadly, this was Bernard Lee's last film as M, as he was in poor health and passed away before the next movie was filmed.  M would be absent in the next film, then would be played by Robert Brown for the next 4 films before the '90s soft reboot of the franchise.

We salute your many years of service, Bernard Lee

Moonraker (1979) is the second film (in a row, even!) to have nothing to do with the original novel it's taken from, besides the title.  Ian Fleming's third James Bond novel, Moonraker, is about Hugo Drax, an ex-Nazi German who is now working for the Soviets, who builds the prototype Moonraker missile as a defensive measure for England.  But Drax plans to strap a nuclear warhead to the missile and launch it at London!  James Bond must disarm the missile before it launches.  This book was written in the '50s, during an era where the English still feared rockets dropping on them, Soviet communism invading, and secret Nazis hiding next door to them.  So it was a poignant story of the time.  But it was no longer a concern when it finally made it to film, so the more favored space story was used instead, riding the wave of popularity from the first Star Wars film.

There are a few hidden songs from other space-related films in this movie, including a hint of Also Sprach Zarathustra, known best from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).  Bond also discovers the code for a keypad into a secret laboratory plays the 5 tones from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).  The soundtrack for this film is also spectacular on its own, giving a grandiose emotion to the space adventure film.

The self-titled Moonraker theme song is kind of soft and sweet, but not as bad as the previous film.  I actually kind of like it, even if it's not exactly the style of music I'd expect a Bond film to have.  It's performed by Shirley Bassey, who has also performed the title song for Goldfinger (1964) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971).  You can listen to it here:

RECOMMENDATION:
This was a wonderful film, full of sci-fi adventure and intrigue.  The James Bond franchise proves flexible through the '70s, sampling from various genres like Blaxploitation films to now outer space.  This film inspired elements that would continue to be a part of James Bond in future video games, like the giant henchman Jaws, the Moonraker laser rifle, and the Aztec complex.  Not to mention, James Bond himself went to space!  This was a plot point that was supposed to happen all the way back in You Only Live Twice (1967), but budget prevented them from holding their climax in space, so Bond was taken off the shuttle at the last minute.  But they made up for it in this film.  This is a James Bond film you can't miss!