Lunchtime Movie Review on Movie House Memories

Lunchtime Movie Review on Movie House Memories


Moonraker (1979)

November 09, 2012

United Artists released Moonraker on June 29, 1979. Lewis Gilbert directed by: Lewis Gilbert the film which starred Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, and Michael Lonsdale.
Moonraker Movie Summary
Moonraker, AKA “Bond In Space”, is the eleventh James Bond film. It starts with the in-flight theft of the Moonraker space shuttle from the top of a passenger jet.  If an airliner can fucking carry a space shuttle with no problem, then why the fuck do they need to charge $35 for our checked luggage?  Keeping with the flight theme, we next see our grandfather, I mean James Bond, in a luxury jet.  A fight ensues and Bond and Jaws, the only likable character from Happy Gilmore, fall out of the plane.  They battle over the only parachute.  Bond wins the parachute by throwing his Metamucil at Jaws thus causing Jaws to land on top of a circus tent.
Bond investigates Drax, the space shuttle manufacturer, at his secret French chateau in California (just off I-10 and highway 60, near Beaumont).  The two meet, and have idle talk over afternoon tea.  After tea, Drax tells his henchmen to kill Bond.  Tea went poorly.  The henchmen attempt to kill Bond via a g-force simulator and in a hunting incident rather than just outright kill the not-so-secret agent and blame it on some fall-guy.  Bond also meets Doctor Holly Goodhead.  That’s not a joke, that’s the character’s actual name.  Yeah, we know, they’re not even trying anymore.  But it’s not all fun and games for Bond, since he conducts some actual spying by photographing some of Drax’s secret plans.
The plans lead Bond to Venice where he immediately decides to take a tour of a glass making factory because that’s what old people do; right, Patrick?   Eventually, everyone was kung-fu fighting in the glass display area of the factory with the typical results.  Drax’s henchmen also try and kill Bond while he’s taking a leisurely gondola ride.  However, Bond’s gondola has a motor and a chase ensues.  As Bond runs out of canal, his gondola turns into a mother fucking hovercraft! The bad guys give up because the bad guy’s guns which couldn’t possibly stop a vehicle supported by a cushion of air.  No word on if Bond’s hovercraft was full of eels.
Also during his stay in Venice, Bond also learns Drax is making a nerve toxin and Doctor Holly Goodhead is no ordinary doctor, she’s a CIA operative.   They don’t tell us this, but I like to think her CIA codename is motorboat.
Bond then goes to Brazil to follow-up on a lead and again comes across a little Goodhead.  While in a cable car above a valley, Jaws attacks the both of them.  Bond and Goodhead fall to escape while – Jaws crashes into a building.  A diminutive, pig-tailed blond helps Jaws from the wreckage and they both fall madly in love with one another.
Paramedics come to where Bond and Goodhead fell, and offer assistance.  007 declines their help, but they really insist; to the point where they stuff Bond and Goodhead into an old-timey ambulance against their will.  Bond manages to escape the ambulance, and he celebrates cowboy style. Then,  Bond reports his findings to MI6 which directs him to stop Drax.
Bond finds Drax’s Amazon compound. He walks right up to the front door, and Drax promptly captures him.  Again, he’s not big on the whole “secret” part of secret agent.  Drax gets Bond to spill the beans on his plan of killing all humans from his hidden space station and repopulating the earth with his favorite people.  Bond reunites with Goodhead when Drax stuffs him under a shuttle about to take off.  The two find an air conditioning vent and manage to make their way to another shuttle ...