Two years after Star Wars, Bond went to space. Purists call it the moment the series left the rails; I call it a film where a man escapes a centrifuge, a gondola drives through St. Mark’s Square, and Jaws falls in love. Cinema contains multitudes.
The plot
A Moonraker space shuttle is stolen mid-transport, and Bond’s investigation lands on Hugo Drax — billionaire industrialist, orchid collector, and owner of a space station he neglected to mention to NASA. Drax’s plan: wipe out humanity with a nerve toxin and repopulate Earth from orbit with his hand-picked beautiful specimens. Eugenics with a view. It’s that kind of movie.
The villain
Michael Lonsdale plays Drax as a bored emperor — soft-spoken, perfectly tailored, and completely unhinged. “Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him.” His California chateau (actually Vaux-le-Vicomte) and pheasant-shoot assassination attempt on Bond are Moore-era villainy at its most elegant. Jaws returns from The Spy Who Loved Me and gets the redemption arc nobody ordered and everybody loved.
The girl
The Bond girl of the night is Dr. Holly Goodhead — CIA agent, shuttle pilot, astrophysicist. Lois Chiles plays her smart and self-possessed; she’s onto Bond’s cover before he finishes the handshake, and by the finale she’s flying the shuttle while he shoots. “Doctor” in the name, competence in the script — for 1979, that’s practically a progressive manifesto. Their zero-gravity “re-entry” joke closes the film and the decade.
The verdict
Is it ridiculous? Devastatingly. Is it fun? Enormously. The laser battle in orbit was silly then and is silly now, but the stunt work — that free-fall opening sequence shot for real — is staggering. Take your medicine and enjoy the spectacle.
Filed: 3.5/5 — docked in orbit, martini on the flight deck.