75 replies to this topic

[PrinceKamalKhan]

Watched this last night with my nine year old son and eight year old daughter. They loved it, as did I. Took me back to seeing it on TV when I was their age in the 80's. Brilliant.

Love when Bond, M, and the minister arrive at Drax's in Venice in gas masks. Hilarious. Also, Drax phoning the Acme Evil-Henchman Store for a new right hand man: "Well, if he's available...". Brilliant, just brilliant.

10/10 for me. That surprises me, but there you go.

Great story. MR is the ideal Bond film to show to young viewers and introduce them to the series. Save ones like LTK and CR for when they're teenagers or older. Every time I watch MR, I get in touch with my inner 10 year-old and love it, both serious and funny moments alike. I watched it recently for the first time in a long time and thoroughly enjoyed it as always. A great cure for depression.

[sharpshooter]

I agree. Moonraker is ideal for younger Bond fans.

While it is a parental decision, I think youngsters can embark upon all the Bond films. I did so and turned out fine. I think. Violence on film is good; violence on the street is not. I could tell the difference.

Don't hold a fan back. It’s the thrill of entering this exclusive adult world, and I think children like to be scared.

[DamnCoffee]

Moonraker is a good, fun, solid Bond outing. It's stunning, and is littered with great performances. It was nice to see Jaws make a return, though I feel Kiels performance is The Spy Who Loved Me was a lot more menacing.

The 60's Bond was glamorous and sophisticated. The 80's kicked off the more down to earth Bond, and the 70's Bond was all about fun, I feel that some people forget that. For me, this isn't just the Bond film where Bond goes out into space, it's a brilliant send off to the 1970's Bond.

If you take away all of these fun elements, you can see just how brilliant Moonraker actually is. Take Corrines death for example. I've never seen a death scene more beautifully filmed than this. It's chilling.

[Guy Haines]

Nearly everyone here has fond, rose tinted memories of Moonraker, but I have to tell you, it was the Bond movie that almost made me give up on Bond.

It wasn't out of antipathy to Roger Moore and his portrayal. Though he wasn't my favourite 007, on the whole I enjoyed his first three films, and as Bond he is no worse in MR.

And I have to admit it had its good points. Michael Lonsdale for one, who seemed like a Connery era bad-guy who had accidentally wandered into some other film. Lois Chiles was an improvement on her predecessor as Bond's leading lady. Corinne Clery was an attractive sacrificial lamb. And the villain's barking mad plot had one detail put right compared with that of Karl Stromberg - Drax at least had some people ready to repopulate the world after he had gassed everyone else, compared with Stromberg's plan to trigger World war III and hope for the best thereafter.

But set against all that there was the Jaws character's journey from cartoonish villain in TSWLM to cartoon clot in MR. The misguided addition of Jaws' girlfiend - and the romantic music when they first meet. The set piece action in Venice - complete with gondola/hovercraft and triple taking pigeon - which is just too daft to laugh at. And the whole business of taking Bond away from Earth and turning him into some kind of laser gun waving super-hero.

Plus, and I've commented on this already elsewhere on the site, I was actually looking forward to seeing a film of Moonraker that was reasonably similar to the original book. A plot to destroy the capital of England with a nuclear missile always seemed suitably Bond-like to me, and the book had a superb villain in Sir Hugo Drax. So that added to my disappointment. If I wanted to see a space based adventure I could have watched Star Wars.

If the series had continued along the MR road I think that would have been it, for me. Thankfully, it didn't.

[Safari Suit]

Well the first time I saw Moonraker all the way through was in 2006. A good year for me to be sure, but certainly not a source of rose tints for my memories IMO, and I like it.

[LTK_(1989)]

Moonraker is epic Bond done so right - the bland Bond girl in Lois Chiles and the sometimes cartoony sequences detract slightly an epic 007 wonder. I tend to think that Moonraker gets a bad wrap and is often is branded with a generalized mark of "campy" or "cheesy" and its lush cinematography, brilliant score, and great action are overlooked. The scene where Corinne is run down by Drax's hounds, the intense deaths of the scientists, Bond's brutal dispatching of Drax is often forgotten while Jaws flapping in the air, double-taking pigeon, and space travel is cited as the definition of the tone of Moonraker. I don't subscribe to this - while surely comedic in many ways and far from Fleming's vision, Moonraker entertains heavily with amazing adventure and Roger Moore in top-form. Moonraker invites thoughts of Corrine's death, Bond tracking through the dark streets of Venice, the awe-filled score to Bond's discovery of the Pyramid over space and jokes for me. Sure, for grounded, dark, Flemingesque viewing I look elsewhere - but when I want to kick back and take in a fun, balanced, epic Bond adventure, Moonraker is a film I often turn to.

[Guy Haines]

Watched this last night with my nine year old son and eight year old daughter. They loved it, as did I. Took me back to seeing it on TV when I was their age in the 80's. Brilliant.

Love when Bond, M, and the minister arrive at Drax's in Venice in gas masks. Hilarious. Also, Drax phoning the Acme Evil-Henchman Store for a new right hand man: "Well, if he's available...". Brilliant, just brilliant.

10/10 for me. That surprises me, but there you go.

Great story. MR is the ideal Bond film to show to young viewers and introduce them to the series. Save ones like LTK and CR for when they're teenagers or older. Every time I watch MR, I get in touch with my inner 10 year-old and love it, both serious and funny moments alike. I watched it recently for the first time in a long time and thoroughly enjoyed it as always. A great cure for depression.

Perhaps its just me, but when it comes to Bond, if I want to revisit my inner 10 year old I watch OHMSS and/or any one of the 1960s Connery films. Or all of them. I discovered Bond before my teens. I had read all the Fleming books by my early teens. And that influenced my attitude towards Bond films such as MR. Time after time in the mid to late 1970s era I kept hoping for a continuation of the films I had watched as a 10 year old (back to back double bill Connery at the local flea pit). Even with Roger Moore and his more relaxed, humourous approach to the role.

If there's a pattern in this thread it is age. If you were pre-teen in 1979 you would have happy memories of MR because it might have been your first Bond.

For me, to be brutally honest, it was a disappointment.

[Lachesis]

There is a lot to enjoy in MR, Drax is deliciously villianous and understated (apart from his 'I am a villain' dress sense), Lois Chiles is a more convincing foil for the more mature Bond than many we've seen, the locations are well used and sumptuous, the sci-fi elements are delilvered carefully and intelligently, some imaginitive action and some unusually dark death scenes. It looks the provebial million dollars.....

However while 85% or more of the running time of this movie is really quite good, its the all too critical pay offs, those bits that leave you with a lasting impression that invariably sell out to cheap humour or self defeating excess - just when you let your guard down and start enjoying it another scene finishes with a groan (or if you make the mistake of watching it in company a squirm of embarassment) rather than a cheer.

Moonraker is a potentially superior Bond film with a banal 'Carry On' style movie threaded through it....which is a shame because I think it might otherwise have been Moore's finest outing.

A potential score of 7 ends up a charitable 5 from me.

[sharpshooter]

Lois Chiles in HD! YES!!!!

Very under-rated Bond girl.

She does look out of this world, but her voice is even more, er, heavenly.

[Colossus]

She has a Lauren Bacall thing going on.

[Loomis]

Agreed 100%. MOONRAKER is an absolute revelation on Blu-ray. All of the Bonds look and sound fantastic on the format, but MOONRAKER may well be the pick of the bunch. LIVE AND LET DIE is another standout in terms of giving an amazing, eye-popping, brightly coloured and cinematic new lease of life to a film I'd always felt rather drab and TV movie-ish.

I now exclusively watch Bond on Blu-ray and may well get rid of my Ultimate Edition DVDs, which I now find unwatchable.

[Guy Haines]

There is a lot to enjoy in MR, Drax is deliciously villianous and understated (apart from his 'I am a villain' dress sense), Lois Chiles is a more convincing foil for the more mature Bond than many we've seen, the locations are well used and sumptuous, the sci-fi elements are delilvered carefully and intelligently, some imaginitive action and some unusually dark death scenes. It looks the provebial million dollars.....

However while 85% or more of the running time of this movie is really quite good, its the all too critical pay offs, those bits that leave you with a lasting impression that invariably sell out to cheap humour or self defeating excess - just when you let your guard down and start enjoying it another scene finishes with a groan (or if you make the mistake of watching it in company a squirm of embarassment) rather than a cheer.

Moonraker is a potentially superior Bond film with a banal 'Carry On' style movie threaded through it....which is a shame because I think it might otherwise have been Moore's finest outing.

A potential score of 7 ends up a charitable 5 from me.

I agree with much of this. With a bit of a tweak to the sci-fi elements, and the ditching the "Carry On Bond" humour, MR would have been a worthy successor to TSWLM - even though this fan would still have wanted a film based on MR the book.

To me it wasn't so much "Carry On" as "carried away". I think the film makers got carried away with the success of TSWLM, thought that excess = success (particularly in the humour), and as a result, over did it all.

[dragomalefoy87]

I gave it 10 !!!

It's the best Bond movie of all time !!! Don't pay attention about bad critics, this movie really made me the bond fan i'm today, So enjoyable, beautiful soundtracks. Definitely love it

Edited by dragomalefoy87, 12 December 2010 - 12:53 PM.

[Achille Aubergine]

I gave it 10 !!!

It's the best Bond movie of all time !!! Don't pay attention about bad critics, this movie really made me the bond fan i'm today, So enjoyable, beautiful soundtracks. Definitely love it

You seem to be...all time "high" about this film...

[Andy Bond]

I won't hesitate in saying that this is probably my least favourite Bond film. I don't mind Bond being a little tongue in cheek, I really don't but I think this is the film where it went too far. I think they realised this aswell considering they toned the films down a bit afterwards. It gets to the point where some of it really doesn't feel like Bond anymore, such as the space scenes. Hardly anything at all is taken seriously. The little plot that there is is a simple rehash of the previous film whilst and Jaws really starts to wear thin. The love story and everything made it that bit worse.

There are still some good scenes, I enjoyed the gravity simulator scene and the dog chase early on but overall, I definitely don't rate it as a film. 5/10

Edited by Andy Bond, 20 February 2012 - 08:29 PM.

[AStupidPoliceman]

Oh James...

Just as Roger's starting to hit a hot streak (Yes, I love TMWTGG) we're treated to Moonraker. I can not even enjoy it as escapist entertainment. It surpasses funny, silly, and ends up in ridiculous a good portion of the time. A cool, calculating, poised villain and some excellent shots are not enough to save Moonraker from an over-the-top made-for-TV feeling the film exudes most of the time. I'm afraid it also features one of the weakest female leads of the series.

What I Like: Hugo Drax: His vocabularly and poise are what really hook me. Yes, he also wants to exterminate the human race and start over with a hand-chosen few, blah,blah,blah, but I hang on ever word he says. I await his next syllable with great eagerness! He gives an impression similar to Joseph Wiseman as Dr. No, another great villain!
*I also love the much darker scenes throughout the film: the scence where the dogs chase Corinne, and the scenes shot in orbit showing the sun peek from behind the Earth look magnificant and truly make you feel something important's about to happen. The destruction of the space station is also quite good as the explosions and destruction of the set seems very real, and the peril all the more believable.

What I Don't Like: Pretty much everything else. Two things I feel are worth mentioning. 1- The fight scenes with Jaws look particularly wooden and bland. Not convincing at all. 2- Goodhead might be the only Bond girl to actually make the film a little worse. As Bond is about to fall to his death from a cable car, her cry of "Hang on James!" sounds more like she's getting out of the shower and not trying to save a man from death.

My least favorite, I'm afraid. 2/10