Review of Moonraker: Special Edition (James Bond)

Introduction

Despite being a big James Bond fan, I have never properly watched the last three Roger Moore films – MGM’s current releases of the movie on DVD mean that I can now start to catch up without the irritation of advert breaks etc.

After the success of The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only was supposed come next, but the sci-fi mania stirred up by Star Wars and Close Encounters led the producers of the Bond films to tkae Bond into space with Moonraker instead.

For those unfamiliar with the plot – a Moonraker (Space Shuttle) is hijacked while being transported across the Atlantic on the back of a 747 – causing major embarrassment for the UK Government who the craft was being loaned to. Bond is assigned to trace the Moonraker and becomes immediately suspicious of the manufacturer, Drax Industries. In Venice, Bond discovers a laboratory making nerve gas for shipment to Brazil – Bond follows and discovers the secret hideout of Drax, a huge underground launch site for the Moonrakers. Bond of course manages to get aboard one of the craft and journeys to Drax’s space station where he saves the day in typical fashion.

Video

Video comes in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and is of the same high standard as the rest of the releases in the series. As with so many action films however, there is some dreadful rear projection that detracts from the action – in Moonraker, the scenes on top of the cable car and the river/waterfall chase are badly afflicted.

Visually, Bond films are always stunning, mainly due to the locations used and Moonraker is no exception. The manic gondola chase through the canals of Venice which becomes a hovercraft chase through the streets, the spectacular cable car scene in Rio and the waterfall boat chase are all classic examples of Bond action. The cable car scene is even more amazing after you learn in the documentary that the stunt doubles were not tied on, even when hanging over the edge!

The shots in space are also particularly well done, especially bearing in mind that this film was made long before the days of using computers for scene generation and composition. The documentary advises that the effects were achieved with models and the film was wound back through the camera for each element of the scene to be shot - 96 times for one scene!

Audio

The soundtrack has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1 and sounds pretty good – although not as good as the sound in For Your Eyes Only.

Whilst good use is made of the available channels for music and some effects, there is little rear channel separation.

Features

The “Inside Moonraker” documentary is narrated by Patrick MacNee and runs for 42 minutes. As with the other documentaries in the series, it is extremely interesting and informative – particularly the bit dealing with the waterfall sequence which explains how the original speedboat got stuck on the top of the waterfall, causing a major headache for all concerned!

There is also a “The Men Behind The Mayhem" Special effects documentary which runs through all the films and talks briefly about the effects and who was responsible. This is interesting enough, but covers material already available on each of the movie discs.

Rounding things off are a director’s commentary, stills gallery and trailer.

The menus are again impressive and are easy to navigate – although I wish that the symbols for moving between sub-pages were labels “Next”, “Back” etc rather than arrows that could be confusing.

The DVD is housed in an Amaray case with the usual collectible booklet providing background information on the movie along with details of the chapter breaks.

Conclusion

Moonraker was the most commercially successful Bond film when released and broke records around the globe – it took Pierce Brosnan’s debut in Goldeneye to knock it off top spot many years later.

The film is well made and features a good cast – Michel Lonsdale is particularly good as Drax and Lois Chiles is also good as Holly Goodhead. There are also plenty of spectacular action sequences and locations, but the film isn’t quite serious enough to be as good as its predecessor The Spy Who Loved Me, or the sequel For Your Eyes Only. This is in part caused by the reliance on gadgets, but also the general “cheesiness” of certain scenes, particularly when Jaws meets his girlfriend in Rio and when Bond rides up to the monastery dressed in a poncho.

MGM have put together a good package – good sound and picture are again backed up by high quality extra material – yet another worthy addition to the ever increasing Bond collection on my DVD shelf.