I mean, just the idea of this is unbelievable, James Bond goes out into space and fires lasers to stop an evil man from making a Space Colony and gassing Earth. Those words alone should be the biggest turn off for any viewer, but apparently that's not the case.
There are really too many Clichés in this film that you'll lose count within the first five minutes of which I have listed below:
Like many films of that era, it suffers from the Star Wars effect, where it feels the need to add lasers and space adventures so that it can keep with the current trend. But when you're dealing with James Bond, that cannot and will not work! Roger Moore's acting is quite enjoyable, with his endless run of One-Liner's coming over the hill like the American's at Iwo Jima and Michael Lonsdale makes a really good villain as the menacing and calculative Drax. But other than that, this film falls through the floor faster than Dr Schnider in The Last Crusade. Don't get me wrong, the idea of Social Cleansing with Nerve Gas can make a good story, but not when you apply it in Space with Lasers. It could have been a regional thing, possibly an act of Chemical Warfare on a neighbouring country, or an attempt at Ethnic Cleansing, but no, they had to drag it to the stars and leave it with it's head in the clouds. It's long winded, overly complex and just cannot be Bond...
There are really too many Clichés in this film that you'll lose count within the first five minutes of which I have listed below:
- Instead of either shooting or stabbing Bond, they decide it's better to take what appears to be a very expensive plane and abandon it in mid- air, leaving Bond to tumble helplessly from the sky. Bond breaks free from his bonds (forgive the pun) and steals the nasty bad-guy's parachute and attempts to fight off Jaws (yes, him from the last one with the steel teeth), who is left crashing into a Circus Big Top.
- Rather than secretly killing him whilst Dr Goodhead is away, Drax instead sends his personal Ninja (wierd isn't it?), to turn up the G- force simulator to the point of death. Bond uses his special watch to blow up the controls and shut down the machine.
- Assassins to turn Bond into Swiss Cheese in the most obvious and overly engineered way possible. Bond escapes in what many have considered the stupidest escape method ever, using a Hovercraft disguised as a Venician Gondola! If you don't think that's stupid, I don't know what is!
- Rather than using a concealed assassin in the dark rooms, they instead have the Ninja from before try to slice him into Exotic food with a Sword. After running amok and smashing the Glass Museum into a broken mess, Bond is able to kick the Ninja out the front of a clock and down onto a restaurant below.
- Jaws (yes, he's still in this movie), cuts the steel cables with his razor sharp teeth before confronting Bond and Goodhead on the Cable Car as it tumbles to the bottom. Bond and Goodhead escape just in time for the car to smash straight into the bottom station. Again, Jaws, despite everyone else around him being dead from the impact, manages to calmly walk away, and in so doing comes across a girl and the pair fall in love.
- A group of henchmen in speedboats attempt to sink Bond in the Jungle. A concealed sniper would have worked perfectly, if not, pre-placed Depth Charges.
- Rather than having Bond and Goodhead put up against a wall and shot, he instead feels it necessary to put Bond under the blast pad of the launching Moonraker rocket and thereby cremate them. This of course leaves our heroes with ample time to escape and Drax's rocket blasts off into space, our heroes stowing aboard at the same time.
- In space, a Space Shuttle (which would normally take months to plan and prepare)full of Marines has been whistled up in a matter of hours to come to the aid of our heroes, resulting in a Laser Fight in Space!! This isn't the Battle of Yavin, this is James Bond!!
Like many films of that era, it suffers from the Star Wars effect, where it feels the need to add lasers and space adventures so that it can keep with the current trend. But when you're dealing with James Bond, that cannot and will not work! Roger Moore's acting is quite enjoyable, with his endless run of One-Liner's coming over the hill like the American's at Iwo Jima and Michael Lonsdale makes a really good villain as the menacing and calculative Drax. But other than that, this film falls through the floor faster than Dr Schnider in The Last Crusade. Don't get me wrong, the idea of Social Cleansing with Nerve Gas can make a good story, but not when you apply it in Space with Lasers. It could have been a regional thing, possibly an act of Chemical Warfare on a neighbouring country, or an attempt at Ethnic Cleansing, but no, they had to drag it to the stars and leave it with it's head in the clouds. It's long winded, overly complex and just cannot be Bond...