007 Journals: Moonraker

Hey, you know what was popular and exciting in 1979? Star Wars! Now up until this point Thunderball was my reference point for the worst James Bond film. That has since changed. Now I know there a lot of people who love this film, whether ironically or not. Since everyone pretty much knows what's up with Moonraker I thought I would take a little different approach to it. I'll still include a review but I will say no matter how you look at it, this is a bad movie and is most definitely a representation of the time it's made. Everyone knows that this was a direct response to what the phenomena Star Wars became. Now I was born in the late eighties and therefore was not around when this movie released. I have heard a lot about the legacy of this movie so I knew the sort of things I would see but I didn't know what to expect. I would also like to point out that I am on record as saying I am not as big a fan of the campiness of the Bond series. I came to this with fresh eyes for the first time in 2015 and my thoughts will reflect it as such.

Now this film was coming off of The Spy Who Loved Me which is a film I enjoyed very much. It had a couple over the top moments but still manged to pull off a fairly serious spy movie. We even saw Bond with a little aggressiveness as he excessively executed Stromberg with multiple gun shots. Moonraker pretty much immediately throws out all seriousness. I thought maybe I was going to enjoy my time during the cold open. It's a great stunt, all done with real stunt actors, that involved Bond jumping out of an airplane and trying to snatch a parachute off a bad guy. Then out of nowhere Jaws is there too. Now I thought Jaws was kind of awkward in the previous film but overall I loved him. He felt imposing and like a slasher movie villain. An unstoppable force. This time however he's played up for comic effect. Every encounter he has with Bond ends with him almost dying but surviving miraculously and brushing himself off. It felt so much like a cartoon that this could have easily have been a Loony Tunes movie and is the Bond film that has the most felt as such. It is happy to note that Jaws finds love in a busty blonde as we all hope to one day.

Now Roger Moore was the oldest actor to play James Bond and in his fourth outing I am really starting to notice his age. Granted he does look good for his age but he does seem a little more tired this time around. Luckily he is still charming as 007 but it's becoming less believable when he seduces every woman he comes across, and I do mean every woman. I don't think there's a woman that he has a serious interaction with in this film that he doesn't bed. It's almost becoming a parody of itself at this time. Honestly what hurt this movie the most for is how much it sticks to the Bond formula which is something that has just happened too many times in a row . I know that's what a lot of people like about these early movies and I'm not saying it can't work, The Spy Who Loved Me was very much a by the numbers Bond film but it was just pulled off so much better. Honestly all of the Roger Moore films have felt similar and maybe if I was watching them with years separating them I would feel differently but I find it hard to imagine living in a world where Star Wars has happened and then seeing this and feeling it was even close to the same level.

Honestly I never felt so bored watching a movie and really the only other movie in the series that felt this boring was Thunderball but I feel like I could give Thunderball another shot. Moonraker not so much. I'm not sure if they were aiming to replicate Grand Moff Tarkin with Drax but he was just as flat as anyone could be. I don't think I ever noticed him without his arms crossed or behind his back throughout the entire movie. He was monotone and deadpan through his entire performance and just not believable as a Bond villain. Not to mention his plan was identical to the previous villain Stromberg only instead of creating an underwater society it was a space one. Drax is easily my least favorite Bond villain to date.

If I wanted to get into the specifics of this movie I could be here all day. I'll just throw out a lot of the obvious low points. The special effects, Bond's boat is ridiculous (and turns into a hover craft), a pigeon takes a double take look at Bond driving a boat on land, the cookie cutter plot, aging Roger Moore, Jaws as comic relief, out of place laser fight, Bond using a shotgun as a sniper rifle, the nonsensical falling into the right locations, hard tonal shifts, Bond suddenly becoming a cowboy, bad green screens, and giant fake snake. There are so many more but I figured I should mention what I did like about the movie. The fight with Drax's samurai ally was pretty brutal and fun with them just destroying a glass room. I also liked the reveal of the space station. It was some nice cinematography and miniature work. Honestly that's about it. I know this movie falls into the "so bad it's good" category for a lot of fans but for me it was just bad. I give Moonraker a one out of five.

007 Journals: You Only Live Twice

Well coming off of Thunderball I knew it couldn't get any lower than that (Moonraker I got my eye on you), and while I was skeptical of You Only Live Twice going in, what I felt was a mixed bag of emotions. This movie was easily worlds better than Thunderball but that isn't exactly saying much. First I will just start off and say that I did enjoy You Only Live Twice but I didn't love it. The first half of the film was really rocky and full of some questionable decisions. The film starts off with a silly scene in space with a rocket swallowing another rocket. Honestly though, while this kind of sillyness is what I normally don't like in the Bond series, I was willing to go along with it this time. However there is a lot of painting other cultures in a weird and misunderstanding light. We see an assembly of England, the United States, and Russia right after the space incident, and the US and Russia are painted as children pointing fingers while England is the adult mediator. Interesting. Not to mention James Bond literally becomes Japanese. Someone tells him to his face that they will train him to be Japanese (not a ninja like he is really training to be) and Bond's hair style even changes and at one point he is standing hunched over trying to look like other Japenese people around him. Wildly racist and ridiculous. I see why some people love it.

So we have been seeing SPECTRE as the main antagonist force in all of these previous films (except Goldfinger really) but now is the time where we finally meet the Number One in the flesh, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. While we have only seen his lower body and cat in previous films this is the first time we see his face, though it doesn't come until over an hour into the film. Now Blofeld this time around has an interesting plan that I don't really understand. He is bribing the worlds nations for one hundred million dollars but is really trying to start World War three, for what reason is never explained. You can only assume it's to gain control and become the new world power as the head of SPECTRE but it's never established. So Bond is in Japan looking for this mysterious rocket that stole an American shuttle and we do get some legitimate spy work. Bond breaks into an office and recovers some documents leading to SPECTRE but we do get a great fist fight in a set clearly designed for a destructive fight. There are actually a lot of solid action scenes in this movie but this first fight is easily my favorite. There is another solid, but shorter fist fight at the end and just a lot of gun play. Even from a toy helicopter shooting down full sized helicopters. I thought the helicopter fight was going to be incredibly stupid but I actually enjoyed it and the green screen work was completely solid.

This film really is like riding through a roller coaster of enjoyment. There are so many ups and downs that I wasn't entirely sure where to fall on this one. Over all I enjoyed it because there were a lot of great actions scenes, maybe even some of the best in the series up to this point, but there were just a lot of weird script moments. All of the times that someone in SPECTRE kills the opposite person that you think they are going to gets old and makes them seem just poorly managed as an organization. Maybe if they killed who they should then more plans would succeed. At one point Blofeld literally is about to shoot Bond but shoots someone next to him instead. Just pointless. This has happened in multiple movies at this point and seems more and more confusing at the series goes on. This is the first film however that really establishes the villain as a "super villain". Blofeld has a maniacal appearance, a pet cat that he strokes constantly, and literally has a base built into a volcano. But you know what? It all works for me. All of the outlandish elements in this movie are done with such earnest that it really came off as believable for me. The series hasn't quite yet reached being a parody of itself but I feel like that time is coming soon. I did also like seeing Bond work heavily with another agency which is something that does happen a few times in Bond but this is the biggest extent I've seen so far working from the beginning. 

The Bond girl this time around felt really unforgettable which was actually kind of refreshing. There was the normal sexual tones but it felt toned down and didn't really interfere with the plot. There was the one issue where Aki was killed in an assassination attempt on Bond, and he moves on in literally the next scene, but sadly that's not really out of character at this point. When Bond isn't being Japanese Connery is now just in full Scottish mode and there is no attempt to make Bond seem completely British anymore. I can't blame the guy due to his raw deal he was getting but it was definitely more noticeable this time around. I really enjoyed Connery in his early tenure as Bond but ever since Goldfinger I've been anxious to move on and see how the other actors fair with my tastes. I know Lazenby is next followed by one more Connery (or two depending how you look at it) but I'm ready for the Roger Moore films which I have a feeling will be a little more difficult for me but I'm hoping to be surprised.

You Only Live Twice was definitely not the worst film so far but it doesn't live up to the standards  of Goldfinger or From Russia With Love. Those two are easily the best of the Connery's and while this film did some interesting things, it wasn't consistent enough to make my top list. I love Blofeld as the main man running SPECTRE but his plan didn't really amount to much in this film and he wasn't even in the movie in a meaningful enough capacity. I would have liked to have seen more Blofeld and Bond together. It could have cut the running time down significantly and could have been a more entertaining movie. Overall I give You Only Live Twice a three out of five because while it's worth watching, I just didn't love everything about it. There were a lot of great action scenes and some awesome spy stuff, but a lot of bad dubbing, dialogue, and just silly plot moments. Maybe next time Bond. Maybe next time.