Moonraker

While investigating the disappearance of a space shuttle, British secret agent James Bond (Roger Moore) uncovers a mad scientist’s plot to destroy all human life on earth.

Moonraker, the eleventh entry in the long-running James Bond series, was a direct result of the sci-fi explosion of the late 70s, triggered by the box office success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars. Thus, we have Bond in space, blasting away with lasers in zero gravity.

Yeah, it’s that bad.

Despite a good performance from Michael Lonsdale as the villain, Moonraker remains one of the worst Bond outings to date. The script offers little more than a bare thread to stitch together the film’s various set pieces, many of which are recycled from previous Bond outings. Heck, even Jaws, the great henchman from The Spy Who Loved Me, is back, although the decision to convert him to a good guy really robs the character of his edge and plants him firmly in the “camp” category.

Further, the special effects aren’t even that good. The zero gravity environs are clearly just slow-motion shots, and the lasers look positively cartoonish. At least the producers seem to have a sense of humor about it all; as the credits list that the film was shot “on location in Italy, Brazil, Guatemala, U.S.A. and Outer Space!”

A nice joke, but not enough to make Moonraker worth watching, except for the most die-hard of Bond fans. It’s not an awful film, but with so many better entries in the series, why bother?