Moonraker (1979)

Directed by

Lewis Gilbert

Genre

action film, adventure film, thriller film, spy film, speculative fiction film, science fiction action film

Country

Australia, United Kingdom, France, United States

Runtime

2h 06m

Rated

PG

Rating

6.2 of 10 from 2,244 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

James Bond investigates the disappearance of a space shuttle and tracks the mystery across the globe. He uncovers a wealthy industrialist's plan to destroy humanity and replace it with a perfected race in outer space.

light-heartedfast-pacedslickcampyplayfulexoticlarger-than-lifefun

What happens

Moonraker is a 1979 spy-fi film, the eleventh in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the fourth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The third and final film in the series to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, it co-stars Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Corinne Cléry and Richard Kiel. In the film, Bond investigates the vanishing of a Space Shuttle orbiter, leading him to Hugo Drax, the owner of the shuttle's manufacturing firm. Along with astronaut Dr. Holly Goodhead, Bond follows the mystery from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro, the Amazon rainforest, and finally into outer space to prevent a plot to wipe out the world population and repopulate humanity with a master race. The story was intended by author Ian Fleming to become a film even before he completed the novel in 1954; he based it on a screenplay manuscript he had devised earlier. The film's producers had originally intended to make For Your Eyes Only, but chose Moonraker as a result of the resurgence of the science fiction genre, following the success of Star Wars, and NASA's concurrent test flights of the Space Shuttle. Budgetary issues led to the film being shot primarily in France; other locations included Italy, Brazil, Guatemala and the United States. The soundstages of Pinewood Studios in England, traditionally used for the series, were only used by the special effects team. Moonraker had a high production cost of $34 million, more than twice as much as The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and it received mixed reviews. However, the film's visuals were praised, with Derek Meddings being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and it eventually became the highest-grossing film of the series at the time with $210.3 million worldwide, a record that stood until 1995's GoldenEye. Moonraker was Bernard Lee's final outing as M before his death in January 1981. The next film in the series, For Your Eyes Only, followed in 1981. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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