Two Blokes and a Chick Watch: Moonraker
Moonraker is often remembered as BOND IN SPACE as it’s the one film where Bond transcends his role of special agent to become an astronaut. It’s also one of the more formulaic of the Bond films, being almost a carbon-copy of its predecessor The Spy Who Loved Me, albeit with all mentions of “underwater” crossed out and replaced with “in space”. We’re looking at a film slap-dab in the middle of the Moore era, where everything is tongue-in-cheek and very reflective of the times.
Unfortunately, one of the blokes couldn’t join us this week (we’ll call him “Siy” because that’s most of his name) so he missed out on something truly, specially mediocre.
It’s one small step for man, one giant spoiler for mankind beyond this point.
Why did they go with “Bond in Space”?
It’s 1979, two years after the first Star Wars film and Joe Public is chomping at the bit to see the next one. Sci-fi is all the rage…
“F*ck!” curses one of the Bond script writers, “all we’ve got is this bloody secret agent franchise! How the hell are we going to grab some of that sweet, sweet sci-fi money that George Lucas is raking in?”
“We could just send 007 into space,” says his associate, through a noseful of cocaine.
“Don’t be stupid,” retorts the first script writer. “Nobody would believe that.”
“Dude, I wrote a submarine car in the last one and nobody complained,” says his associate, thumbing some white powder out of his nostrils. “We could write some laser guns in, nobody would notice that we don’t have that technology. Besides, Ian Fleming wrote a book called ‘Moonraker’, it’s perfect!”
“What was the book about?”
“Nazi missiles or something.”
“…Screw it,” says the first script writer. “How soon can you get a draft to me?”
The second script writer scoops the pile of cocaine off of the table into a baggie and wipes the table surface with his shirt sleeve. He snorts the shirt sleeve, pulls out a copy of the script for the Spy Who Loved me rolled up in his back pocket and crosses out the name on the front, writing ‘Moonraker’ above it.
“Just give me half an hour to replace all the references to water with ‘space’ and we can have this baby greenlit by lunchtime.”
What’s the film about?
UK RAF forces are transporting a space shuttle for the Americans when it gets stolen. In order to save British pride Bond is sent to investigate its disappearance, starting with the mysterious Drax Corporation, the people who made it. After numerous attempts on his life 007 takes the hint that he might be on to something, and so he spends the rest of the film generally being a nuisance to the Drax Corporation while he haphazardly stumbles through a conspiracy to clean the world of humanity. Things eventually culminate with a confrontation in SPAAAAAAAAACCCCEEEEEE…
Who are the characters?
- James Bond: Roger Moore has settled into the role of Bond like wearing a comfy pair of pyjamas at this point, refining most of his performance down to using his eyebrows to emote and judo kicking and chopping whenever he gets into a physical encounter.
- Dr. Holly Goodhead: 1979 was slap bang in the middle of a resurgence of women’s rights. Unfortunately for Louis Chiles, it’s difficult for her to represent a strong independent woman with a character named Dr. Goodhead (presumably a relation of Dr. Feelgood). Holly is by no means the most forgettable Bond woman, but her role is limited to knowing stuff about space shuttles and not particularly doing much else.
- Sir Hugo Drax: it’s amazing to think how hard it is to not become absorbed in the role of a charismatic megalomaniac, but Michael Lonsdale succeeds in suppressing all urges to emote and brings a truly bland performance as a man apparently born with no emotions. Most villains steal every scene they’re in, but Drax is so much of a personality vacuum that screen time with him means you’re waiting for any other character to reappear.
- Jaws: one of the only Bond henchmen in history to return for a second outing, and he’s on form to provide slapstick laughs aplenty and completely jar every scene he’s in with unwelcome comedy. Best character in the film! And, aww, he has a romantic sub-plot this time around. How cute.
So what happens?
Moonraker doesn’t mess around, it opens straight on to the Moonraker shuttle being carried by aircraft; two helpful (and shortly dead) characters exposit that the RAF are transporting the shuttle for the Americans. Some thugs appear from inside the obvious bed hatches inside the shuttle and power it up, causing the shuttle to ramp off of the back of the plane and blow it to smithereens. Good job making sure the shuttle was empty, morons! You’d think that would be a rudimentary check.
In London M is looking pretty bad as Bernard Lee is dying from stomach cancer. He gets off the phone after hearing about Moonraker being stolen and asks Moneypenny where Bond is. She says he’s just on “the last leg” of his journey home. Cut to a woman’s leg (haha!) belonging to the latest bird sat in the arms of James Bond, on a private plane. Because Bond can’t go five minutes without getting into a shag or a scrape, the woman pulls a gun on him and a seedy foreign type in tan suit and sunglasses appears from the cockpit and also points a gun at him. Apparently we’ve stumbled into the tail end of the last epic Bond adventure. The bad guy shoots the plane’s controls (careful with that, haven’t you heard of cabin de-pressurisation?) and then gets into a scuffle with Bond. Bond throws the guy out of the plane (er, that’ll show him? And his parachute?) and then stupidly stands in the plane’s doorway for a few seconds, long enough to be promptly shoved out of the plane by Jaws. Wait a minute, the plane’s only several feet long, how do you miss seven-feet of man mountain and let him get the jump on you? Perhaps he was stood in the corner with a lampshade on his head. It’s not even specified as to whether he’s working for the other bad guy, he could just randomly popping up to harass Bond!
With the ability to fly not being one of the many skills Bond has at his disposal, he suddenly finds himself with the dire need for a parachute. He goes after the Bad Guy in a pretty cool skydiving sequence. He easily wrestles the parachute off of the guy (where’s the woman? Chilling out on the plane?) and clips it on. Suddenly, Jaws appears behind him, and the only problem is that the camera keeps going for close ups and we can see it’s clearly not Roger Moore and Richard Kiel in the sky.
Jaws grabs Bond’s leg and goes to take a bite out of it when Bond foils his plans by pulling the cord on his own parachute. As Bond sails out of his grasp Jaws tries to pull his own cord and – ha! – rips it clean off. He comically flaps his arms to try and stay in the air but ends up plummeting through a circus big-top, bringing the place down. Crash zoom on Jaws’ silhouette on his crotch area and trippy credits sequence rolls. I’ll level with you: I have no problems with overt slapstick comedy in James Bond, especially where Jaws is concerned because he kicks arse as characters go. It’s amazing how a guy who doesn’t even speak can steal every scene he’s in. Jaws will not be getting much of a grilling in this recap!
The credits sequence is pretty standard Bond affair – silhouettes of naked women doing flips on a trampoline, silhouettes of Supergirl flying through the air having forgot to put some clothes on, some naked tart sitting on a spinning disco ball, you get the picture. The song’s pretty soothing and tediously calm, not exactly going to measure up to the big booming bombastic opening to Star Wars, is it?
M sits around in his office with his soon-to-be replacement the Minister for Defence (who would next be seen in *shudder* For Your Eyes Only) and Q. Bond already knows about Moonraker because he knows sodding everything (alright, fair play, he admits to reading it in the newspaper this time and doesn’t know anything beyond that). MI6 are baffled and have no clues, so they’re sending Bond to California to visit Drax Industries, the company that made the shuttle. This is a bit like going to Apple HQ because someone stole your iPhone, or flying to Japan because a car thief pinched your Toyota.
Q’s scene is brief but memorable; he provides Bond with a small gun to strap under his wrist that fires when he lifts his hand up. You can’t help but wonder how dangerous it must be to have a gun that gets activated by your wrist’s nerve impulses strapped to said wrist. What if you needed to scratch your balls or point at someone? Either way, it’s “standard issue”, up until the next film anyway (presumably because agents kept firing cyanide into their own feet). Bond tests the dart launcher out on one of M’s paintings, much to his disapproval (actually you can’t help but feel sorry for the poor bastard as Bernard Lee is slurring his words and really does look on his last legs).
Bond now gets the helicopter tour of Drax Industries. By which I mean we get the helicopter tour of Drax Industries, which is about as entertaining as it sounds.
The helicopter moves from Drax’s industrial estate to his residential estate nearby, which is about several acres of grass with a French mansion in the middle of it. Apparently Drax also owns the Eiffel Tower, which is a feat so comical that there was a similar gag in Casino Royale (1967). On the front lawn are a bunch of well-toned individuals working out, including several above-average women which the director makes sure to capture a few close-ups of because hey, f*ck feminism. The pilot tells Bond that these are astronaut trainees and he remarks that “[Drax] seems to have an eye for a good investment”. Since it wasn’t all women on the front lawn Bond has rather buggered this quip up by inferring that he’s bisexual.
Inside the mansion, a butler escorts Bond to meet Drax, who’s decked out in a full black suit while playing classical music on the piano in the company of two trained dogs and two very sultry women. There’s even a pan over Drax’s hands to show that he’s really playing (as if we couldn’t believe a man can play the piano) except I’ve just realised that the shot is more so that they can fit in some product placement for Steinway and Sons Pianos (smooth, Mr. director!).
It tuns out that the women in his company are a Countess and a Lady, which just goes to show that, along with the ladies on display out front, Drax is a total pimp. Drax allows them to leave and explains to Bond that he’s grateful that the British government should send such an esteemed agent (who’s reputation proceeds him, which is an odd thing to say to a “secret” agent isn’t it?) to apologise for the loss of his shuttle. Drax then tries to heavily hint to Bond that he might be the bad guy by simultaneously paraphrasing Oscar Wilde while showing that his trained dogs won’t go for raw meat unless told to with a snap of his fingers. Bond doesn’t quite get the message, even when an man of eastern descent walks into the room to deliver the tea, and from one look at him any fool could deduce that he’s a villain’s henchman just from his villainous moustache and frowny eyes (by which I mean he’s frowning all the time, that’s not supposed to be an Asian slur or anything).
Drax uses a lot of long sentences and words, and seems thoroughly disinterested in everything. As such, he’s like Blofeld or Elliot Carver without the charisma or stage presence. Whenever Drax in on screen, everybody else steals the scene away from him. He’s a pretentious, dull man and as such has no business as a Bond villain. Never trust a man who quotes Oscar Wilde!
Anyway, the helicopter pilot returns to walk Bond to the next leg of his tour, and before Bond’s even out of the room Drax has decided that he wants the man dead despite spending less than three minutes with him and tells the manservant to “see that some harm comes to him”. That must be some kind of record! It also shows that Drax, for all his pomp and wit, is frankly clueless about keeping a low profile. If it wasn’t for the next series of events, Bond wouldn’t have gotten the hint that he’s the bad guy! And if he did successfully kill Bond, wouldn’t that just tip off the British government?
Bond goes to meet Doctor Goodhead who turns out to be, in his words, “…a woman?”.
Dr. FeelGoodhead shows Bond the Moonraker shuttle by introducing it as “this is it”. To Bond’s credit he doesn’t go “ha ha! So you admit it, you stole the shuttle!” but instead decides to finish off Goodhead’s introduction to the Moonraker because Bond can be a rude c*nt sometimes and finishing off other people’s sentences is a really bad habit of his.
As revenge for cutting her off, Goodhead decides to let Bond try out the centrifuge G-force trainer. He’s strapped in and we see from his slightly concerned expression that he’s not into bondage (irony!). The Asian manservant arrives to tell Goodhead there’s a call for her, and he excuses the man in the control booth. Now alone with Bond, the manservant increases the dials and pulls out the cable for the emergency stop button (huh, bit of a design flaw, that!). We’re treated to varying degrees of Roger Moore’s oh-face as the centrifuge gets up to speed.
Before he passes out, Bond has a knee-jerk reaction to coming so hard and reflexively jerks his wrist back, firing a dart into the control board and stopping the centrifuge. Goodhead comes back to his aid (having spent ages on the phone; women, eh?) and Bond scowls at the manservant as he walks away.
That night, Bond gets jiggy with the helicopter pilot. This is an excuse to raid her office in the middle of the night and, being the best secret agent ever, he does this by turning the light on and making a lot of shuffling noises as he rifles through her desk. She inevitably wakens and doesn’t stop him as he cracks open the hidden safe under a nearby clock using X-ray technology. Bond then points the device at her chest so he can quip about her “having a heart of gold” and presumably gives her chest cancer at the same time (gotta love that radiation!). She watches on as he takes pictures of the safe’s blueprints using his “007” monogrammed spy camera and returns the items to the safe, and then they kiss because feminism, right? However, the villainous manservant was watching from a corner of the room all along! Dun dun dunn!
The next day, Drax is shooting pheasant because that’s what rich people do. Bond joins him and rather unsportingly decides to shoot the assassins hidden in the trees rather than shoot at the pheasant (boy, that would’ve been awkward if it turned out they weren’t assassins and were just getting a vantage point!). Bond is chauffeured off of the premises while Drax has his dogs chase down and murder the helicopter pilot in a forest in a scene that could easily pass for an Apple advert from the 80’s.
Venice! Bond is visiting the glass makers that were mentioned in the blueprints. The woman on the desk tells him he can stroll anywhere he wants on the premises, which is a little bit odd. The glass makers are making hexagonal glass tubes, almost like honeycombs.
Bond joins a tour group roaming the showrooms of the building because he spots Dr. Goodhead, after scouting the room.
Bond follows Dr. Goodhead out of the building and gets up close enough to point out the date of the building she’s admiring.
His attempts to flirt with her and ask her to dinner are shot down. Bond seems genuinely taken aback that a woman wouldn’t want to go out with him, and doesn’t appear to make the connection that she might assume he’s stalking her across the world. Defeated, Bond steps on to a nearby gondola, complete with stereotypical stripey-shirted gondolier.
Bond tries to look as if he intentionally meant to sit on a love seat for two by himself (holding back the sulks all the while) on the gondola when the coffin on a passing funeral boat opens and an assassin begins throwing knives at him, taking out the gondolier in the process. The assassin is defeated when Bond uses the brilliant tactic of throwing his knives back at him (“Agh! Knives! My only weakness and yet ironically my only strength, too!”). Bond then reveals that this is actually an MI6 gondola, flipping back a hidden control panel and kicking the gondola’s engine to life. You have to wonder if every agent visiting Venice gets assigned a standard issue speed gondola, courtesy of Q smoking what must be the heaviest of weed.
Moonraker rips off the Man with the Golden Gun’s speed boat chase for a bit, even dropping in that gag where a speeding boat cuts a row boat in half. Thankfully, Sheriff J.W. “definitely not a racist” Pepper doesn’t make a reappearance. The chase is cut short when Bond discovers he’s run out of water. But wait! By flicking another switch, the boat turns into a hovercraft!
Bond returns to the glass makers and happens to randomly spy on a scientist entering a hidden lab via a keypad on the wall, which plays the theme to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (subtle!). Inside, scientists are loading the hexagonal glass tubes into some pods. When they’re out of the scene, Bond does what he does best – break in and start faffing around with stuff he doesn’t understand. It’s a bit like watching a toddler trying to figure out that the round peg doesn’t go into the square hole.
Hearing the scientists returning to the room, he carelessly leaves a tube of clear glass liquid precariously balanced on one of the pods as he escapes back out. He can only watch as the tube inevitably smashes on the floor when they move the pod, releasing a noxious gas that kills both the scientists but leaves the rats in the nearby cage unharmed. Bond considers the tube of liquid he slipped into his pocket while not giving a shit about the dudes he just straight up killed by accident.
Walking out into the glass-maker’s plaza (tactful!), Bond is assaulted by Chang (the Asian manservant). They fight in the glass display room, smashing the hell out of everything in what makes for a pretty good fight sequence. When he realises he’s losing, Chang leads Bond up to the attic, where he’s promptly thrown through an ornate window by Bond, landing in a piano in the street below in front of a live band and crowd of onlookers. I should start a counter for the amount of people who have seen Bond not being so secretive this mission, we must at least be in the hundreds by now! Bond can only quip “Play it again, Sam”, which is a tenuous link to something that was never actually said in Casablanca despite popular belief.
Cut to Doctor Goodhead in her hotel room. As she goes to pick something off of her side table, a hand grabs hers out of the darkness and a voice yells “hah!”. The light flicks on and it turns out this is Bond’s idea of a funny joke.
Bond proceeds to reveal that every item of Dr. Goodhead’s is an outlandish weapon of some sort – the pen is a syringe of cyanide, the diary fires darts, the perfume is a flame-thrower…to be honest, it’s surprising Dr. Goodhead hasn’t accidentally killed herself before this point. “Standard CIA equipment”, Bond observes, which sounds absurd but remember this is a world where British intelligence issues their agents with speedboat hovercraft gondolas. They kiss and have hanky panky, but not before a bit of product placement.
Bond leaves her in the morning, and takes the Minister and M to see Drax’s secret lab. Drax has blatantly had plenty of time to have all the lab equipment moved and is sat in a splendorous office where the lab used to be, which is embarrassing for the three men walking in wearing gas masks. The Minister blatantly tears Bond a new one, and then Bond shows M the small vial of deadly gas he should have shown M and the Minister before they went to see the secret lab (duh!). Bond decides he’s going to Rio, because that’s where a load of Drax’s shipping crates and Dr. Goodhead are going (presumably he’s going for the latter reason rather than the former).
Meanwhile, Drax is on the phone to one of his lackeys to find a replacement for Chang (or “Shhang” as he pronounces it). He says “oh yes, well if you can get him, of course”. Cut to Jaws having trouble with the metal detector at the airport, as apparently Drax is impressed at the seven-foot henchman’s credentials of not being able to kill one British secret agent despite numerous attempts. Still, Jaws is back, f*ck yeah!
Bond arrives in Rio on the Concorde (remember that?) and notices a woman taking pictures in the car behind his taxi. It turns out she’s waiting for him in his room and is actually Manuela, an agent from “Station VH”. Bond doesn’t ask for any proof of this so whatever. They decide to infiltrate Drax’s holding company during the Mardi Gras, but not before Bond gets jiggy with her.
Cutting through the crowds at Rio several hours later (Bond failing to blend in once again by wearing a freshly-pressed tuxedo), Bond shimmies up a pipe on the side of the warehouse in an alleyway. Maneula watches as a seven-foot mascot clown walks ominously towards her from the other end of the alley.
In the warehouse Bond finds some Drax Air Freight beer mats. Outside, the clown removes his head and reveals himself to be Jaws (Yaay!). He goes to kill Manuela by ripping out her throat with his teeth, but is interrupted by passing party-goers emerging from a nearby club. He pretends to be carrying Manuela and dancing while she doesn’t scream and call for help in the slightest, instead retreating into “startled deer” mode (feminism!). Jaws is about to get on with killing the bitch when Bond leaps on him from above. Before Bond has a chance to punch him in the mouth (if he keeps doing it it’s got to work at some point, right?) another crowd of party-goers swarms past and drags Jaws off with them. Although he’s resistant at first, it’s heartening to see him roll his eyes as if to say “f*ck it” and then carry on down the alley with them to go have a damn good time. Bond shows Manuela the beer mat, which is somehow a clue for a certain airport that Drax uses. Manuela exits the film.
The next day, Bond goes to the top of a nearby mountain via cable car. There’s a telescope up there and he uses it to look at the airport (he really went all the way up there just for that?!). Swinging the telescope around to follow a passing plane, he sees Dr. Goodhead looking at him through another telescope about five yards away (she went all the way up there just for that?!?).
They exchange exposition and ride a cable car down the mountain. At the bottom, Jaws sees one of the massive cables and immediately decides that he’s going to sink his teeth into it (unfortunately, Mythbusters would go on to prove that a man with metal teeth cannot chew through inch-thick steel wire cable), but not before he’s stopped the massive turning wheel guiding the cable with his bare hands. Bond decides that the pair are better off outside the safety of the car, and no sooner than they’re on the car’s roof Jaws chewing the cable in half causes the car to rock (wouldn’t it just plummet?) and Bond is launched off the side.
Jaws’ bald sidekick (he always prefers a bald sidekick, ever since Chander in the Spy Who Loved Me) knocks out the only cable car engineer in the place and the big man himself begins to haul himself along the cable like a massive gorilla towards the second cable car. Meanwhile, Dr. Goodhead is making a meal out of pulling Bond up but eventually helps him back on to the roof. The bald sidekick turns the cars back on once Jaws is in the second car, and both cable cars ascend/descend to meet in the middle (apparently Jaws severing a major cable didn’t break anything crucial).
Face-to-face once again, Jaws leaps from his car to Bond’s and the two engage in fisticuffs. Despite this being Bond’s third or fourth encounter with the big man, he decides that the best course of action is to punch Jaws squarely in the mouth, almost breaking his hand in the process. When this doesn’t work he head-butts him in the mouth instead, which works out about as well as you’d expect. Dr. Goodhead flails around on the roof of the car and Jaws shows her that a woman’s place isn’t in a fistfight with him by downing her with a swift backhander (bitch got told!). Through combined flailing, Goodhead and Bond manage to push Jaws down the hatch into the cable car and slam it shut on him, locking it. They use a convenient chain to slide down the cable, which turns out to be a terrible idea when the bald henchman turns the power back on and lets the cable car chase them, with Jaws inside. Bond and Goodhead leap into a patch of grass that’s apparently not fifty feet below them as previously hinted, and Jaw’s cable car speeds into the station, smashing through a wall.
Jaws is trapped under the cable wheel. A blonde, pony-tailed young woman comes to his aid and, as the theme to Little House on the Prairie plays, they frolic off somewhere because she’s his woman now.
Goodhead is making out with Bond in the grass when some paramedics arrive. Bond doesn’t expect one of the medics to crack him over the back of the head limply with a cudgel, and to be fair as Bond villain traps go this one comes straight out of left-field. Bond comes to in the speeding ambulance and, while Dr. Goodhead distracts the guard (using flirty eyes, no less), Bond frees himself from the trolley he’s strapped to and gets to overpowering the guard. Goodhead’s entire contribution to this fight is to remain strapped to her trolley and randomly tear out a chunk of the guard’s hair while Bond beats him to a pulp within her limited grabbing range. Bond somehow manages to launch himself and the guard on to the empty trolley, causing it to trundle off of the back of the ambulance. While Bond skilfully tumbles across the ground with all the grace of a fish on land, the trolley somehow leaps a foot in the air off-screen and embeds itself into a billboard.
Bond dusts himself down and we cut to him randomly dressed as a cowboy on horseback crossing the plains of what is presumably Rio. He arrives at a monastery and inside opens one of the doors to see two monks practicing kung fu on each other. Hey, this was another joke in the 1960’s Casion Royale! Walking around, he randomly finds Moneypenny in one of the corridors, and it becomes apparent that MI6, not content with developing the hover-gondola or outfitting their agents with wrist guns with terribly temperamental trigger mechanisms, has set up shop inside a monastery. Why that requires Q, Moneypenny and M to all travel out there just to meet Bond goes unmentioned.
Moneypenny directs him to the courtyard where Q is testing some themed gadgets, such as exploding bolas, a fake sleeping man in poncho and sombrero who opens up to reveal an automated Gatling gun, and a full-on Star Wars laser gun. Wait. One of these things is not like the others. In fact, the last one is so random that it’s actually jarring – okay, later on Bond will be venturing into space where everyone will be carrying these guns, but for some random Q underling to be testing one out doesn’t make a lick of sense at all. It’s not even foreshadowing either, it’s just a bit like “hey, laser guns, these are cool! Right?”. Q doesn’t even appear to acknowledge it, as if even he’s not quite sure why it’s there. A line like “oh, this is something we’re developing for the Americans for conflict in areas with no atmosphere” wouldn’t have made any sense, but at least the gun’s appearance would then have some context!
Bond goes to see M (Bernard Lee still looks like shit) with Q. Q confirms that the vial that Bond stole from Drax’s secret lab is a special nerve gas that doesn’t affect animals. Bond requests to see the formula.
Because Bond’s obscure knowledge extends to botanical sciences, he automatically deduces that the formula is for a plant, and just by seeing an image of the plant he rattles off its Latin name and its rarity. He even corrects Q as to what region a missionary found one. I’m beginning to suspect that Bond might be slightly autistic.
M sends Bond to go to the last location the flower was seen, which is a bit of a leap in logic as it doesn’t necessarily mean that Drax is going to be there (he is, but that’s just a massive stroke of luck on MI6’s part). Q gives him a speedboat because the Moore era hadn’t quite flogged the boat chase sequence to death enough yet, and I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t just let him use his submarine Lotus.
Cruising down the river, it’s not long before Bond comes under Mortar fire, and boats full of yellow jump-suited goons toting guns begins pursuit. Amongst them is the star of the show, Jaws! (Yaaaay!) Bond dispatches a few boats by littering the water with mines (because indigenous animals can go screw themselves) and blows up another using a heat-seeking torpedo.
More chasing, more boat shit we saw in Live and Let Die, more terrible close-ups of main characters filmed against obvious rear-projection. Bond manages to avoid most of the mortar shells by driving in a straight line (they never saw that coming!) and, realising he’s driving towards a massive waterfall, he straps on a helmet, releases the canopy and flies a hang-glider over the falls. It’s all a bit “meh” as Bond does this sort of thing all the time, but it is followed by the best moment in the entire film as Jaws accidentally rips the steering wheel off of his boat while trying to turn it, leaving him speeding towards the falls. Realisation dawns on him:
Jaws (or at least a very obvious scale model of Jaws) goes over the falls, but this is just a minor inconvenience for a henchman of his calibre. Bond lands the glider and faffs around in the jungle for a few minutes. You’d expect him to become hopelessly lost and having to consider eating his own foot in a few days, but his sex-sense kicks in and he’s drawn to some random chick bathing under a waterfall. Using lecherous skills he’s taken years to hone, he expertly stalks her across the jungle. She leads him into an improbably Aztec temple, and as she turns to the camera we see it’s the woman who manned the desk in the glass factory. She’s already picked up on Bond’s lack of subtlety and beckons for him to follow her across a bridge. More women appear, all having appeared earlier in the film doing various things for Drax (and possibly off-screen, doing things with Drax as we’ve established that he’s a pimp).
The room looks suspiciously familiar, being a typical Bond villain décor of modern elements within a natural setting.
Having learned from Connery’s experiences, Bond tries walking around the pool rather than crossing the bridge. Unfortunately, it’s a double-bluff in a genuinely clever play on the audience’s (and Bond’s) expectations. One of the rocks he steps on slides sideways and dumps him into the water. A large constrictor slides into the water and wraps around Bond, strangling and drowning him. Luckily, his kleptomaniacal tendencies means that he’d pocketed Dr. Goodhead’s poison pen and he stabs it rather anticlimactically into the snake’s jaw. Climbing out of the pool, he comes face to face with a dripping wet seven foot smiling Jaws. Drax appears on scene to suck all the life out of it.
Bond is escorted into another room of the temple, one that’s been converted into Drax’s control room. We waste ten minutes while Drax exposits and watches his Moonraker shuttles leave the earth. Basically, he’s taken plants that cause sterility via long-term exposure and has genetically engineered them cause sterility to death (wrap your head around that). It’s probably a generational thing that shuttles taking off is quite boring, as back in the day it was probably amazing.
It’s also revealed that Drax stole the American’s Moonraker at the beginning of the film because one of his own developed “a fault during assembly”. I don’t know about you, but if I was working out a plan to wipe out the human race from orbit, the last thing I’d do is attract suspicion by doing something as drastic as a mid-air hijacking of a shuttle from some Americans. I don’t know, it just seems to make more sense to hold off the plans for a little bit longer while you build a new Moonraker in your bloody Moonraker assembly plant. Drax doesn’t come off as arrogant, either, it just feels like he’s genuinely blind to the long term consequences of things. This is the guy who impulsively asked for Bond to be killed rather than let the agent off Scott-free, and look what happened – the agent you tried to kill became suspicious and is now standing in your control room!
Bond is thrown into a room under one of the shuttles, where Dr. Goodhead greets him. It looks like a conference room, but once the shuttle begins to power up the desk and chairs descend into the floor and the ceiling opens up to reveal the shuttle’s thrusters. Just think, if the thrusters ever malfunctioned while Drax was holding a meeting there would have been quite a nasty accident (perhaps another example of his lack of forward-thinking?).
Racing to escape before the thrusters blast them into cinders, Bond uses the C4 concealed in his watch (they won’t get around to miniaturising the laser technology we saw earlier until the 90’s) to blast open a convenient ventilation grate (something definitely needed on a blast chamber) and the two scurry down it as shuttle flame roars behind them. You’d think rocket fire would be faster than two people crawling down a narrow air duct but who am I to judge? They exit the shaft and sneak on to one of the nearby transport carts.
Bond and Dr. Goodhead sneak off of the truck and ambush another, luckily picking a truck being driven by two of the Moonraker pilots. Nobody questions the female pilot in the ill-fitting headgear (lucky the rest of the jumpsuit fitted!) as both agents approach Moonraker 6. As they clamber into the cockpit, we’re just about to assume that Dr. Goodhead’s space expertise is going to come into play just before she crushes her own usefulness by explaining that they’re on a pre-set flight course.
We’re now treated to about five minutes of space flight. I’m sure the effects blew people away at the time, but in this cynical modern age it’s all a lot of nothing happening on screen. On top of that, the concept of a secret agent venturing into space is a bit outlandish, even for the Moore era where everything is hyper-realistic (that’s a media studies term for “bloody silly but makes sense within the context of its own universe”). Bond wouldn’t go on to do anything quite so over-the-top until he faces the power of the sun in Die Another Day. Of course, the other problem with Bond in space was that negative criticisms would lead to the Bond team trying to go “back to basics”, which resulted in [insert audible sigh here] For Your Eyes Only, a film so desperate to get back to what Bond is all about that it aped a lot of previous Bond films and forgot to have an identity for itself.
The shuttles head for a massive space station. Dr. Goodhead concludes it must be hidden by a radar jammer (raspberry?). As the shuttle connects, the scene drags its heels a little bit longer by having one of Drax’s minions don a spacesuit and float through the space-station just to turn on the power and the gravity. The agents disembark and mingle amongst all of Drax’s people in the main hub of the station. Jaws is amongst the other minions, and as a perk he’s been allowed to bring along his new girlfriend (aww!). In fact, must’ve been awkward trying to explain that you’re “a henchman for a mad bastard who wants to wipe out humanity and if you don’t come with me you’ll die too, despite the fact we’ve only known each other for a couple of days”.
The lights dim and the spotlights focus on Drax. He delivers a speech that should be infused with hellfire and vigour but instead delivers it in a long, droning voice that just makes the fact that he’s under a spotlight more awkward. The gist of his speech is that Drax has picked out a whole bunch of exemplary humans he considers ideal for the genetic template of a new generation of humans, so he’s going to wipe the Earth clean and while the gas is dissipating they’ll all have a massive space orgy. Later on they’ll send down their progeny and rule over the Earth as gods.
Bond and Goodhead proceed to the radar jamming strut of the station and dispatch the entire two dudes on duty, the scene only notable because Goodhead suddenly develops the ability to kick arse, having apparently only just remembered the kung fu skills she forgot to demonstrate during the rest of the film (feminism!). Bond rips out a cable from a control panel, luckily picking one not tied to the oxygen system. He ties up the goons with it while Goodhead removes a key part of the panel (bit pointless as Bond’s already ripped out a key cable but whatever). On Earth the Americans talk with the Russians as to who owns the space station, so we get a nice cameo from recurring Russian not-quite-baddie General Gogol. As Gogol’s a pimp he’s in the middle of entertaining a lady when the call comes in.
Drax launches the first death globe at the planet. Jaws finds the agents and, true to form, Bond gives his best right hook straight into Jaws’ jaw.
A kick to the groin also reveals that Jaws has balls of steel in a scene that would later be ripped off in Wild Wild West. Jaws accosts Bond with a bit of bent piping around the neck (lucky the pipe he rips out wasn’t crucial for the oxygen!) and henchmen escort the agents to the main hub. Drax realises that his radar jammer isn’t working and has the second globe of death launched when the agents are brought to him. He’s about to have the agents released from an airlock chamber into open space when Bond not-to-subtly hints out loud that anyone not matching Drax’s expectations of physical perfection might not last very long. Jaws is smart enough to take the hint, so when Drax orders him to “expel them” he hesitates. On the second command to expel them Drax manages to go into full on rage Hitler mode, showing the most emotion he’s displayed for the entire film. Jaws doesn’t take this kindly and joins the agents in kicking some henchman arse. Unfortunately even with Jaws on their side the agents are outnumbered five to one so they give up.
The Americans arrive in a shuttle, and while Drax is preparing to blast them with an oversized Goldfinger death laser Bond sees a big red button. Being the kind of person who can’t concentrate on anything else until he’s pushed a big red button he’s seen, Bond takes the impulsive lunge at it and turns off all the gravity on the station, causing the laser to cancel. Apparently the five guards stood around him with taser sticks weren’t expecting him to do something.
All of Drax’s space children flail around while the Americans approach in their shuttle. Drax makes a beeline for the exit while the space children slowly leave the space station armed with space suits and lasers. The American shuttle deploys its cargo of space marines(instead of launching missiles or anything) and the epic space battle begins. It’s a bit like the ninja fight in You Only Live Twice, only with a lot more special effects. Most notably, apparently in space you can hear people scream, and you can also hear lasers go “pew pew”. The American shuttle docks with the space station and a squad of helmet-less space marines swarms into the base. As Drax’s minions get the gravity back on, Drax commands the third death pod to be launched. The agents and Jaws, in one of the station’s struts, watch as the pod ominously rockets towards the earth. Jaws and the agents deck out a bunch of space goons (Dr. Goodhead even judo throws a guy!) and they meet up with the Americans. Dr. Goodhead manages to stop the Americans from shooting them by yelling “Colonel Scott, don’t shoot!” which, given the typical American collateral damage/friendly fire rate, surprisingly works.
One book specialising in Bond films I once read pointed out that once the space battle has started, all the good-looking men and women disappear. Presumably they’re all killed in the fracas, meaning that Moonraker has the distinction of being the Bond film with the highest death count to date.
There’s lots of laser fire and explosions, Drax pussies out and runs away during the fire-fight. Bond takes pursuit, and when it looks like Bond has him cornered (all the while Drax seems genuinely confused as to why he’s got to this point) Drax grabs a gun off a corpse and prepares to end his woes. Bond raises his hands to surrender and fires a cyanide dart into Drax’s chest from his wrist launcher (in fact it could quite easily have been an accident given the trigger mechanism!). Bond offers him to “take a giant step for mankind” and ushers his dying body into an airlock, where he unceremoniously ejects him into space. The corpse doesn’t de-pressurise and explode on exit, but the film does suddenly gain vibrancy once the emotion vacuum has been jettisoned from the plot.
Dr. Goodhead appears and says that Commander Scott has the station under control. Bond states that the other death globes should burn up on the earth’s atmosphere (bit of an assumption!). Bond orders the Americans to leave as their mission is complete ad he embarks on to Moonraker 5, which just happens to have an operational space laser they can use to shoot at the three death pods heading for earth. Meanwhile, Jaws hunts for his beloved on the shuttle. She appears (having presumably killed loads of people) and the two share a discarded bottle of Bollinger in a toast. Jaws actually speaks for the first time, revealing he’s got quite a deep, posh voice, saying “Well my dear, here’s to us”. The audience’s hearts grow a little as a result.
Bond and Dr. Goodhead have a little trouble getting their shuttle to depart as it is stuck on to the strut. Jaws appears with his girlfriend to lend a hand, and one bent pipe later the shuttle is off in pursuit of the globes. Bond makes an offhand comment that Jaws and his love should be alright in the main hub of the space station as it plummets to earth (how reassuring). The movie stretches out the last fifteen minutes as Bond plays a first person shooter with the three death pods, successfully blasting them to smithereens.
On earth the minister, M and a whole bunch of NASA officials are trying to get through to the shuttle. It’s mentioned that a tall man and woman were rescued from the station’s wreckage after it crashed in the ocean (yaaay!). The shuttle’s webcam tunes in to see Bond shagging Dr. Goodhead under a blanket a foot off of their hammock. The minister snaps “my god, what’s Bond doing?”. Q replies with a genuinely witty one-liner, having not noticed the video feed and instead looking at some shuttle readings: “I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir”.
Bond and Dr. Goodhead go for another round. Credits roll. The film-makers miss the opportunity to have Drax’s corpse float by in the foreground.
So how is the film overall?
I used to look down on Moonraker, but compared to Die Another Day and For Your Eyes Only it’s actually quite a fun, enjoyable film. Give it a go next time ITV puts it on (which is seemingly once every few months). Come for the silliness, stay for the awesomeness that is Jaws.
P.S. Here’s a few random images I captured while writing the review. Enjoy!
Post by Sean Patrick Payne+ | August 31, 2012 at 9:11 pm | Films, James Bond, Three Blokes and a Chick Watch | No comment
Tags: 007, James Bond, Jaws is the best henchman ever, Moonraker, movie recap, movie review, Roger Moore