Moonraker is the Moore era's most extravagant entry and the film that took the franchise's spectacular ambitions to their most audacious extreme, a work of such complete and such unapologetic excess that it transcended the boundaries of the spy action formula entirely and became something closer to science fiction spectacle. Lewis Gilbert's 1979 film is not the finest Bond film, but as a demonstration of the franchise's willingness to follow popular cinema trends to their most extreme conclusion, it delivers its pleasures with a confidence and a comic energy that makes the experience consistently entertaining despite its considerable dramatic limitations.
At a Glance
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Runtime: 126 minutes
Starring: Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Richard Kiel, Corinne Cléry
Release: 1979
Critics Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, extravagant excess with real entertainment energy)
Audience Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, enjoyably excessive)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Bond investigates the theft of a space shuttle and uncovers Hugo Drax's plan to destroy humanity with nerve toxin and repopulate the Earth from a space station with a master race of his own selection. The space station climax is the film's most spectacular achievement, a demonstration of large-scale production design ambition that gives the franchise's most extravagant entry its most visually impressive finale. The plot's willingness to abandon the spy action formula entirely in favour of science fiction spectacle is both the film's most audacious creative decision and its most significant dramatic limitation.
Characters
Moore's Bond is given the franchise's most overtly comic material, deployed with a lightness and a confidence that suits the more extravagant register. Lois Chiles' Holly Goodhead is the franchise's most professionally capable Bond girl at that point in the series, a CIA agent of real competence and real dramatic intelligence whose professional capability gives the film a dramatic credibility the more purely decorative Bond girls of the era did not always provide. Michael Lonsdale's Drax is a villain of real theatrical elegance and considerable comic menace, a character of such complete aristocratic disdain that his plan for human extinction feels less like a dramatic threat than an expression of refined personal taste. Richard Kiel's Jaws returns with a romantic subplot that gives the franchise's most iconic henchman a warmth and a humanity his earlier appearance did not attempt, and his eventual defection to Bond's side is the film's most unexpectedly moving moment.
Tone
Gilbert pitches the film at a register of spectacular excess and real comic energy, giving the film a tonal confidence and an entertainment ambition the more dramatically restrained franchise entries did not attempt. The film's willingness to embrace its own absurdity with complete conviction is its most disarming quality, and the experience is most enjoyable when approached on those terms.
Meaning / Themes
The film's central concern is the relationship between scientific ambition and human destruction, between Drax's vision of a perfected humanity and his willingness to destroy the existing world to achieve it, a meditation on eugenics and human perfectibility the more conventionally criminal franchise villains did not attempt. The film's treatment of Drax's plan as an expression of aristocratic contempt for ordinary humanity gives the franchise's central concern with megalomaniacal villainy its most philosophically explicit expression.
Direction
Gilbert's direction is technically accomplished and spectacularly assured, with a command of the film's more extravagant production design ambitions that gives the space station sequences a visual grandeur the franchise had not previously attempted. The space station climax is the film's directorial highlight, a demonstration of large-scale production design ambition that remains one of the most visually impressive sequences in Bond history. Shirley Bassey's title song is one of the franchise's most romantically accomplished, and John Barry's score gives the film a dramatic weight that suits its more extravagant ambitions.
Cultural Reception
Moonraker was a major commercial success on its release, capitalising on the post-Star Wars appetite for science fiction spectacle and becoming one of the most commercially successful Bond films of the Moore era. Its critical reception was more mixed, with most reviewers noting the film's dramatic limitations while acknowledging its spectacular entertainment value. Its reputation has settled into a consensus that acknowledges its extravagant pleasures while recognising it as the point at which the franchise's appetite for excess most clearly outpaced its dramatic intelligence.
Who Should Watch
Essential viewing for Moore completists and a rewarding film for general audiences who approach it as an unapologetically extravagant entertainment rather than a dramatically serious thriller.
Final Verdict: The Moore era's most extravagant entry. Moore's self-aware wit gives the film a comic confidence that makes the excess consistently entertaining, Michael Lonsdale's Drax is the franchise's most elegantly eccentric villain, and Lewis Gilbert's direction gives the space station climax a production design ambition that makes Moonraker one of the most visually impressive Bond films despite its considerable dramatic limitations.
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