Occasionally I think about binging all the Bond movies I haven’t seen. It’s a series I’d like to be a completist for. It’s fun tracking how it has evolved over the decades, including the failed attempts to jump on trends. I think I prefer how I’ve been doing it though. I get to a new Bond movie once or twice a year and in a crazy order. This isn’t a very serious franchise. Even the Daniel Craig films are metatexually fun despite the films’ serious tone. So, it’s much more enjoyable to treat these films as a goodie bag that I’ll keep taking from until it’s empty. In my mind, there’s always another Bond movie with something silly or creative going on.
Moonraker is among the silliest Bond movies I can remember. “In space” is a punchline people use to joke about a franchise that has gone off the rails. It’s hilarious to think that the producers saw the Star Wars popularity and thought this was a good way to jump on that bandwagon. Jaws is also a funny villain. He’s arguably the most powerful henchman Bond has faced. His size alone is a sight gag. Giving him the metal teeth is plain cartoonish. By the end of the film, he’s outlandish and even a little lovable. I kind of miss the days when Bond girls had names like Holly Goodhead. It’s so direct that it doesn’t even count as wordplay. I definitely appreciate the nutso energy of these Roger Moore movies over the more generic Timothy Dalton movies a decade later.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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