MOONRAKER

   Film (1979). Eon/Les Productions Artistes Associes. Dir Lewis Gilbert, starring Roger Moore, Lois Chiles, Michael Lonsdale, Richard Kiel. Screenplay Christopher Wood, based on Moonraker (1955) by Ian FLEMING. 126mins. Colour.

   British agent James Bond (Moore) uncovers a plot by megalomaniac Hugo Drax (Lonsdale) to destroy the present human race using space-launched nerve-gas capsules and replace it by a master race, to be specially bred in a large, radar-invisible SPACE HABITAT. This belongs towards the decadent, later end of the James Bond film sequence, with Moore pouting fleshily as Bond and a sequence of spectacularly destructiveset pieces replacing any of the escalation of suspense we expect of the true thriller. As with most James Bond films, the science is contemptible and logical flaws highly visible. The film is remembered mainly for the finding by giant, steel-toothed assassin Jaws (Kiel) of a pigtailed girlfriend. The novelization is James Bond and Moonraker * (1979) by Christopher Wood (1935-). The other two (much earlier) films in thesequence that most resemble sf are DR NO (1962) and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967).

   PN