Moonraker
Entry updated 13 September 2021. Tagged: Film.
Film (1979). Eon/Les Productions Artistes Associés. Directed by Lewis Gilbert. Written by Christopher Wood, very loosely based on Moonraker (1955) by Ian Fleming. Cast includes Lois Chiles, Richard Kiel, Michael Lonsdale and Roger Moore. 126 minutes. Colour.
British agent James Bond (Moore) uncovers a plot by megalomaniac Hugo Drax (Lonsdale) to destroy the present human race using space-launched nerve-gas capsules and replace it by a master race, to be specially bred in a large, radar-invisible Space Station. This belongs towards the decadent, later end of the James Bond film sequence, with Moore pouting fleshily as Bond and a sequence of spectacularly destructive set pieces replacing any of the escalation of suspense we expect of the true thriller. As with most James Bond films, the science is contemptible and logical flaws highly visible. The film is remembered mainly for the finding by the giant, steel-toothed assassin Jaws (Kiel) of a pigtailed girlfriend. The novelization is James Bond and Moonraker (1979) by Christopher Wood (1935-2015). The other two (much earlier) films in the sequence to this point that most resemble sf are Dr No (1962) and You Only Live Twice (1967). [PN]
links
previous versions of this entry