As a 12 year old boy I loved the previous Bond movie so I was excited when this one came out, and probably at the time I liked it— but I was 12. I saw it again years later and thought it was absolute drek, so going into this now I was wondering if it was as bad as I remembered.
It was.
The theme song is “Where are You?” but it might have been more appropriate if they’d gone with “What Were We Thinking?”— the next James Bond movie was supposed to be FOR YOUR EYES ONLY But instead STAR WARS came out and did killer business so they opted to make MOONRAKER which they thought would cater to that crowd. Sadly it’s not the worst Roger Moore James Bond film but it is the one that officially proclaimed WE ARE NO LONGER TRYING!
Jaws is back as the killer from the previous movie but from the opening scene he’s treated more as comedy relief than as an actual threat— when your pre credit scene ends in a circus I guess you shouldn’t be surprised that your movie is full of clowns.
This time around Drax is the badguy and he’s a guy who wants to pioneer space, it will save mankind so he’s going to steal nuclear missles and blow up the world or he’s going to steal spaceships and blow up the world— I’m not sure, I stopped trying too.
James Bond will be back in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY
BOND: Roger Moore is cashing his paycheck, they don’t care about making a serious spy thriller any more, so why should he care either? *
THEME MUSIC: It’s disco space and its dreadful. *
VILLAIN: Drax is pudgy and annoying, he reminds me of a D&D Fan going on endlessly about Hobbits and my eyes glaze over. *
OVERALL BOND RATING: *1/2 and I’m being generous