I just recently found out that the next film indeed was going to be For Your Eyes Only, but then Star Wars happened and changed movies as we know it. Trying to cash in on that, the studio suits decided to put Bond in spaaaaace. And that gives us Moonraker. If there’s some kind of droid or robot in this I may quite literally soil my pants. Shit, even the movie poster looks like Star Wars. They aren’t even trying to hide it.
Well there’s our movie title. The space shuttle is named Moonraker. Got that one out of the way early. Shuttle is on the back of a plane and there were stowaways on the shuttle and they just flew it off the plane, causing it to explode. I don’t think the space shuttle works like that.
Love it. M is looking for Bond and asks Moneypenny if he’s back yet. She tells him he’s on his last leg. Cut to Bond sliding his hand up a sexy lady’s leg. Keep being you, movie. He’s on a private plane and the sexy lady is a flight attendant, but she pulls a gun on him! The pilot comes out, takes the gun and shoots the controls. They both have parachutes and plan to leave him to crash (again, you have a gun, just shoot him!). They fight, Bond throws the pilot out the door but then someone pushes Bond from behind out as well. It’s Jaws! Bond dives down and catches up with the pilot. They struggle and he gets the chute away from him, kicking the pilot away screaming. Oh, but here comes Jaws! Wow, so Jaws catches up to him, is about to bite his ankle, so Bond pulls his chute. Jaws goes to pull his but the ripcord breaks, so instead he flaps his arms like wings. When that doesn’t work he falls into the big top tent of a circus and then we go into the opening. Will this be too over the top silly, even for me?
Back to Shirley Bassey, but not her best.
In the office Bond is tasked with finding the shuttle. He’s off to California where it was built. Q gives him a wrist shooter with either armor piercing or cyanide darts.
We quickly established Drax, who built the shuttle, is a rich asshole. Assuming he’s the bad guy. Yup, Drax tells his Asian goon stereotype to kill bond.
There’s a Dr. Goodhead? Oh this should be good. Holly Goodhead. Killing me. Bond is all surprised it’s a woman and being all sexist and creepy. Women can be doctors? Will wonders never cease! She is not amused by his “charm.”
She straps him into a centrifuge and tells him to relax, a seventy year old can handle three G’s. Also says it can go up to twenty G’s, but that’s fatal. Umm, why design it to go that fast then? Moore is into his fifties at this point and it’s starting to show in his face. She shows him the “chicken switch” which will turn it off if it’s too much. Asian goon shows up and tells Holly that Drax wants to talk to her, then he goes to the control room and has the instructor leave. He turns it way up. At seven G’s Bond hits the switch but it’s disabled. He had it into the teens when Bond uses his new wrist gadget to shoot the controls and stop it.
There was a cute French helicopter pilot that took bond to the Drax compound. Bond found her later and banged her for information I guess? I dunno, the scene seemed very forced like hey we gotta have him have sex with someone here. So whatever.
Bunch of white dudes shooting pheasants. And they have the balls to call it a sport. What a bunch of assholes. Ha, there was a dude in a tree with a sniper rifle for Bond. Drax gave Bond a gun to shoot a pheasant, he fired and missed…or did he as the dude fell out of the tree dead. Then he just leaves. Maybe ask why that guy was there? Aw, Drax found out about French lady and Bond. He fired her then had his two big dogs murder her. Hope that magic Bond dick was worth it.
Suddenly we’re in Venice? Holly is there too. She’s still not impressed with his bullshit.
Bond is in a gondola when another boat comes by. It has a casket on top. It opens and a dude pops up and throws knives at him, killing his driver. Bond throws one back killing the dude then flips a switch and the gondola becomes a motorboat. Short chase later and another switch it becomes a hovercraft and can drive on land. This is getting weird and bad campy already, can we just go into space now? Ha, he had a gondola driver hat on and parked his boat then threw the hat onto an ornament of the boat.
Oh Jesus. He snuck into some building and found a door with a keypad. Goofy looking old scientist dude comes up and enters the code, its the tones from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which came out the same year as Star Wars.
Yikes, Bond was sneaking around. Science guys came back and knocked something over. It broke, smoke filled the air and they died instantly. Guess they’re working on an airborne poison. Lucky for Bond he was in a safe room that sealed shut.
Here comes Asian stereotype goon. They fight in a room full of glass trinkets and smash the shit out of everything, including something that was established earlier as being over four hundred years old and worth a million bucks.
Too many of Moore’s quips fall really flat. Not his fault, just shitty writing. The fight goes up into a clock tower. Below them there’s a small performance going on with an operatic singer. Bond throws the dude through the glass clock front and he goes head first into a piano, so Bond says, “Play it again, Sam.” What? Why?
Ah, Holly works for the CIA. She has more gadgets than him…aaaaand they’re kissing. After some sex, he leaves. Still unsure of who used whom there.
Wow Bond took M to the lab and made them wear gas masks, but Drax already had the room cleaned out and looking like a fancy office.
Drax is on the phone looking for a replacement for Asian stereotype. Enter Jaws! The big man is back once again! Ah, the good old days of flying where there was only a metal detector and no strip searches and other over the top bullshit in the name of security. Of course Jaws sets it off. He simply smiles and they let him go.
Now we’re in Rio. He’s followed by a pretty lady who then appears in his room making him his drink that everyone knows about. She’s some other spy there to help and has great legs she ensures to show off when sitting. She takes him to a warehouse and there’s a carnival going on in the streets. He sneaks in while she waits in the alley and some big headed costume dude comes up to her. It’s Jaws! He’s about to bite her, but more party people go by. They leave and back to biting when Bond sees them from above and jumps down to attack, but even more party people come by and sweep Jaws away. Also when Jaws was holding legs lady up she looked so damn tiny in comparison.
Halfway through and still not in space. I’m pretty disappointed.
Bond runs into Holly and they take a sky gondola, but Jaws uses his monster strength to stop it. Ah, Bond and Holly are going down and Jaws was at the bottom. He climbed onto his own gondola and is now coming up to meet them. Jaws hops onto their gondola and the three of them have a very awkward fight. They manage to throw him back into the gondola (I’m typing that word a lot) and Bond throws a chain over the cable and they slide down. Jaws had a guy in the controls helping. He turned the motor back on, making it go faster and faster so Jaws was gaining on Bond. They jump and land safely on the ground while Jaws smashes into the station causing all kinds of destruction and rubble everywhere. Jaws is fine because he isn’t human, but this beautiful woman with braided pig tails and big boobs shows up. They look at each other, music swells and they run off holding hands. Does this mean no Jaws in space? What a let down. Bond and Holly start making out.
Ha, some medics show up to help. Bond is like we’re good and goes back to kissing, but they knock them out and take them away. They’re being taken away in an ambulance. Bonds breaks free and fights a guy, they both fall out the back, but Holly is still in the ambulance. Cut to bond wearing a poncho riding a horse with the Magnificent Seven theme playing. We’re getting further from space.
More Q gadget testing.
Bond heads to the Brazil to find a rare flower the poison is made from. He’s on a fancy boat and chased by other boats. Gadgets are deployed to blow them up. Jaws is on one of the boats. What happened to his new girl friend? Bond’s boat is heading towards these giant falls, so he deploys a hang glider and floats away leaving Jaws to go over. I can only assume he survives since he’s indestructible.
Bond lands and comes across a pretty woman in a white dress, so naturally he follows her. She leads him to a temple that is full of beautiful women wearing the same outfit. Looks like a sexy cult. It’s a trap! The floor tilts knocking him into a pool and a giant snakes is in there looking for dinner. He kills the snake with a special pen, swims to the edge and looks up to find Jaws waiting for him. And here comes Drax.
Three quarters through the movie, are we finally going to space? He just launched four space shuttles with a fifth ready to go. Uh oh, Bond and Holly are in a room that’s under the fifth shuttle and it’s about to blast off. That doesn’t look safe. They escape though a giant air vent and now there’s a sixth ready to launch. They knock out the crew and take their place. Their shuttle has a bunch of sexy couples on it. Bond makes a reference to Noah’s ark. All six shuttles are heading towards a giant space station…in spaaace!
Yay! Jaws brought his girlfriend to the space station! They are just adorable.
Yuck. Drax is talking about creating a “super race.” Not a good idea to follow in those footsteps. Of course, his idea of a super race is just hot looking people. What if they’re all idiots and/or assholes, huh? Is that the world you want to live in? *looks around at the world* Oh, right…
Bond and Holly disable the radar jamming device so the US sees it and mobilizes. Uh oh, Jaws found them. Hahahaha, Bond tried to punch him in the jaw again because he’s still stupid. Punching in the stomach doesn’t work. Tries the old knee in the groin and it makes the same sound as when he punched his jaw. So we’re led to believe Jaws has metal balls too? Now I feel bad for his girlfriend.
Space station has a frickin’ laser they’re going to use against the US shuttle. Meanwhile, Drax is going to throw Bond and Holly out the airlock, but Bond is clever and says for his “master race” anyone who doesn’t live up to his standards will be exterminated. Jaws is picking up what Bond is putting down as he looks at his girlfriend (which I’m a bit confused by. Are they implying she isn’t beautiful, because she is. Is it because she wears glasses? The 70’s were weird), and instead of throwing them out the airlock he attacks the guards. Go Jaws! Too bad it didn’t work.
Lol, there’s this big space station emergency stop button just sitting there. So Bond lunges forward and presses it and the station stops spinning and everyone goes flying (in different directions?). What a poor design. Now there’s no artificial gravity. They’re all moving around like the Six Million Dollar Man when he runs. Fun fact, when I was a kid I’d move around the house in slow motion. My mom is like WTF are you doing? I explained I’m running like the Six Million Dollar Man .
Oh no, is there going to be people fighting in space? Is this going to be like Thunderball? I don’t know if I want to be in space anymore. Shit, everyone has frickin’ lasers. It’s a mad house…in spaaaace! I can just picture the director for this scene muttering under his breath, “You want Star Wars? Here’s your fucking Star Wars .” Then doing another line of cocaine.
While all this is happening, Drax is launching globes of his poison to wipe out all life on Earth. Probably an important plot point.
Jaws as a good guy is making my day. Bond chases down Drax, but Drax picks up a laser gun from the floor. As Bond raises his hands he shoots a wrist dart into Drax’s chest. As he’s dying from the cyanide, Bond shoves him out the airlock telling him to, “Take a giant step for mankind.” He’s double dead.
The station is falling apart and I haven’t seen Jaws or his girlfriend in awhile. They are my only concern at this point. There they are! They embrace, open up some champagne and Jaws finally speaks, saying, “Well, here’s to us.” Then they wander along and wave at Bond through a window. Bond and Holly are on one of the shuttles but they can’t launch. Bond asks Jaws to help, which he does and then the part he’s on blasts away. Bond tells us not to worry, he’ll make it. It’s only a couple hundred miles to Earth? He better be right! The rest of the station explodes, also everything is very loud in space.
Bond and Holly are hunting down the three poison globes that were launched so they can blow them up with a frickin’ laser. Uh oh, he got the first two but missed the last one. It was on auto but had a malfunction, so Bond switches to manual fire. This is completely different from Luke turning off the targeting computer and using the force, by the way. After some drama Bond blows up the last one just in time.
Yay, they report two survivors from the station, a tall man and short blonde woman. They made it!
Oh, Bond and Holly are doing it in space. Ha, ground control turned on a camera and see them doing it. Someone asks, “My god, what’s Bond doing?” Q answers not seeing the screen, “I think he’s attempting re-entry, sir.” I literally lol’ed.
The End.
Fuck you movie! Credits say shot on location in Italy, Brazil, Guatemala, U.S.A. and OUTER SPACE!
Jaws’ girlfriend’s name is Dolly. So there couple name, Jolly? Jawlly? Daws or Dows? I’m going with Jolly. Final answer.
Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only…for real this time.
Obviously, I was very disappointed at how log it took to get into space, but once they got there it was fun. I think Jaws finding love and switching sides made this whole thing worth it for me. Went down a slight rabbit hole on the actress playing Dolly (Blanche Ravalec) and it looks like her and Jaws (Richard Kiel) went to a bunch of conventions together, posing for pictures. They are adorable.
Aside from that, the first hour and a half was kind of forgettable. Not really bad, but basically just whatever. It was a basic cash grab on the coat tails of Star Wars and it showed, but still enjoyed it well enough.