Fellmans Movie Reviews

Red = Spoilers 

Moonraker is a 1979 spy film starring Roger Moore as James Bond for the fourth time. This is the eleventh movie in the series. A stolen space shuttle leads Bond to Hugo Drax. This introduces him to Dr. Holly Goodhead, an American CIA agent, and the web starts getting more and more complex as time goes on, until before you know it, we’re in space, having a battle with lasers and trying to save the human race from being eradicated by orbs with toxins in them that could kill hundreds of millions of people if they penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere.  

What’s it about? A Drax Industries Moonraker Space Shuttle is hijacked in midair off the back of an aircraft carrier by two men who were hiding in cargo drawers aboard the shuttle. The aircraft carrier crashes, but there is no wreckage found of the hijacked space shuttle. MI6 sends James Bond to go find the shuttle. Following a lead to California, Bond meets Hugo Drax, the head of Drax Industries and Dr. Holly Goodhead, an astronaut. In the centrifuge chamber, Bond survives an assassination attempt from Drax’s henchman, Chang. Later that evening, Drax’s pilot helps Bond search Drax’s safe and find plans and take pictures of blueprints. She is later killed by Drax and his pet dogs. Later, in Venice, Bond runs into Dr. Goodhead and finds her spying around a glass factory. He follows her only to be chased by Drax’s henchmen. He returns to the glass factory at night to find a biological laboratory. He watches the scientists in the lab and finds out the toxin they are working on is lethal to humans but harmless to plants and animals. Bond is then attacked by Chang and destroys most of the room full of glass until they climb a clocktower and Bond throws Chang through the face of a clock and down into a party of people and headfirst into a piano. He rejoins Goodhead to find out that she is a CIA agent spying on Drax, and offers to work together with her, but she refuses. Bond gives M the vial he found for analysis and M tells him to go to Rio de Janeiro under the cover of being on leave. Bond survives several attacks by Jaws. The second attack ends with Jaws crashing into a cable car station, and being covered in rubble. A woman named Dolly comes over and helps Jaws up and the two fall in love at first sight. Drax’s henchmen get away with Dr. Goodhead while Bond ends up escaping back to MI6. He learns the toxin he gave to M to analyze comes from the Amazon jungle. Bond travels to the Amazon only to be attacked by Jaws and Drax’s men yet again. Bond is captured this time and taken to Drax where he sees four Moonrakers taking off. Bond is reunited with Goodhead and they are placed in the exhaust area of Moonraker #5 where they will be burnt alive when the shuttle takes off. They narrowly find their way out through an air vent before the ship takes off. Bond and Goodhead pose as pilots on Moonraker 6 and make their way to Drax’s space station which is where all of the other Moonrakers are going on automatic pilot. The space station can’t be seen because there is a radar jamming device. Bond and Goodhead disable the jamming device and the US can suddenly see the space station and they start to send a platoon of marines up to it. Drax tells Bond of his plan to exterminate human race and start over with the “perfect” humans that he’s brought up to his space station with him. Bond convinces Jaws to switch sides when Jaws realizes that he will be one of the people that will be exterminated. Jaws begins to attack all of the crew of the space station while the US Marines show up and begin to battle Drax’s guards out in space. Bond runs into Drax in a hallway and ends up ejecting him into space. After the battle, Bond and Goodhead have to destroy the three orbs that still contain the vials that have the toxins that could kill millions of people on the planet, which they do, just in time.  

What’s good? This is one of the better Bond movies, I think. The effects are getting up there. They haven’t gotten into the overacting yet. It’s a pretty good script. Taken into consideration when it was made, this a fairly good Bond movie. 

What’s bad? Why does everybody move so slow when they’re in space? It’s like they think that’s what happens when you’re in space. I mean, I know this is 1979 and people didn’t know a whole lot about space yet, but I don’t know why they thought you moved in slow motion when you were up there. 

The acting? The acting in this movie is good from most of the people. Some of the crew members are flopping on the space station. But those are extras in a fight scene. What are you gonna do? They don’t really have a choice except to flop. They’re on a space station. 

The effects? They’re getting better. The green screens still aren’t the best. And the walls of the space station look like they’re made of cardboard sometimes. But for the most part, they do a good job with most of the visuals. The laser battles are convincing, being out in space and whatnot.  

Did nobody know those guys were in those drawers? Those guys just popped out of those drawers like they’d been in there the whole time. They seemed like pretty big compartments. Was something important supposed to be in there? Because it was big enough for a guy to hide in. 

Jaws fell out of a plane and he’s still fine? So, is Jaws like, invincible? Because he fell out of a plane, and he just kind of walked it off. He’s getting to the point of Hulk status soon. I mean, he hasn’t been shot yet, but would it bounce off of him? 

Moneypenny didn’t believe Bond. Moneypenny didn’t believe Bond when he said he fell out of an airplane without a parachute because he’s had even crazier excuses for being late. He’s like the boy who cried wolf and it’s not even his fault. 

Drax waited to snap. Drax waited to snap to show Bond that he had the dogs trained to eat when he snapped his fingers. He wanted to show Bond that he could make the dogs do what he wanted, when he wanted them to do it. 

It hasn’t even been one night. It hasn’t even been one night and Bond is already sleeping with somebody and seducing someone to get something out of them. It seems like all secret agents do is travel around the world and have sex with beautiful women. Well, I suppose there are people trying to kill you all the time… That is a downside… 

Bond’s cigarette holder is a safe cracker. No place for a uni-tasker. Everything has to be able to do something else. Q probably gave that to him while telling him to pay attention. 

There’s no skill in hunting. There’s not really any skill in hunting when there’s a whole line of people, standing with guns, and a volley of bullets going towards the birds that are flying up into the air from the ground. They really have little to no chance of making it. It’s kind of unfair to the birds, actually. You’re really just killing birds for fun when you think about it. 

She should’ve known those dogs were coming. Corinne should’ve expected those dogs to be coming for her. She should have been carrying a gun when working for someone like Drax. She should’ve known he would try to kill her sooner or later. When you work for someone like that, they’re eventually gonna try to kill you too. 

How long was that guy in that casket? How long was that guy hiding in that casket before he popped out to ambush Bond? He must have been floating down that canal for some time. And how did he know when to pop out? It was just like “Ah-ha! Guy with a knife!” 

The pigeon double-take. In what is literally one of the greatest Bond moments of all time, there is a scene in Moonraker where Bond drives his boat up from the canal onto land and a raft comes out from underneath it and it becomes a hovercraft. And while it is amazing all of the people in the cafe, it shows a pigeon doing a double-take… 

How did Bond figure out the last number of the passcode? How did Bond figure out the last number of the passcode by simply tone alone? He didn’t see the scientist type in the code. He was basically guessing. 

Of course, they run into a room full of glass to have a swordfight. Of course, when the guy comes to fight Bond, they run into a room full of glass to have their fight. So, they can throw each other through cabinet after cabinet of priceless artifacts and objects. And they even take a minute to show the $1 million pot that the tour guide was talking about earlier in the day before Chang smashes it with his bamboo sword.  

Is the flamethrower perfume standard CIA equipment? Is flamethrower perfume standard CIA equipment? That doesn’t seem like it would be useful for every kind of agent. 

She should’ve known something was wrong with the giant creepy clown. Manuela really should’ve gone somewhere else when that giant creepy clown started coming down that alleyway. She just kind of stood there and waited for it to grab hold of her. It was pretty much her fault. 

Why would Q expect anything he gives to 007 to come back undamaged? Seriously, why does Q expect anything he gives to Bond to come back? He drives cars off cliffs to land on helicopters to blow them up. That’s a strategy. Why would Q expect things to come back undamaged? It’s practically unreasonable.  

Jaws survives, but the other guys are dead. So, those guys in the boat with Jaws, they’re dead. They went over that cliff. Jaws survived, because he’s essentially invincible. But those guys aren’t. Jaws wouldn’t care about going over the cliff because, why would he? But they should have been like “Oh no! A cliff!” 

I wouldn’t follow a beautiful woman into a temple. Bond follows a beautiful woman into a temple, only to have a bunch of beautiful women come out of nowhere. And that’s when you know it’s gonna get bad. And then he gets attacked by a giant snake.  

Everybody is pretending to move ultra-slow because they’re in space. I already said: I don’t know why they were doing it, but people don’t have to move in super slo-mo when they’re in outer space. It’s really annoying to see the actors going for one of the buttons or something and it takes them an extremely long time to even turn their head. Why would being in space affect how long it takes you to turn your head? 

A space battle with lasers. It’s like a shootout at the OK corral, but with lasers. Guys spacesuits were exploding and sparks were shooting off, which from my understanding, doesn’t happen in space. But I’m not an astronaut. I wouldn’t know, anyway.  

Attempting reentry. In what is one of the most delicious 007 puns yet, Q says “I do believe he’s attempting reentry, sir…” When M asks him what 007 is doing on the monitor as he’s laying with Dr. Goodhead on their trip back to Earth on the Moonraker Shuttle.  

So, yeah. Go and see Moonraker. If nothing else, it’s another Bond film that you’ll be glad you’ve seen. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…