The news is clear, there’s only so far you can push a Bond before it breaks. He obviously wants to do his thing then hit the bar for cocktails, but John Glen is nagging him to add a roughness to the slick exterior. As the film labours to generate plot and character, only vaguely keeping tabs with the chirpy traditions, you start to wish it would cut loose and give an excruciating quip. Personal vengeance is a striking theme for this franchise, but it doesn’t sit well. It transpires, Bond’s target, elusively known as “Contact” could well be the man who killed her parents. When 007 arrives in a cloudy Greece, he hooks up with Carole Boquet’s beautiful avenging angel. The all-new moody feel kicks in from the very beginning where we find Bond visiting the grave of his dead wife. The film, stylishly wired in places, still ranks as one of the most forgettable Bonds on record. Sadly, the series was still encumbered with Roger Moore’s portly incarnation, an actor who never found a way of playing the famous role other than with droll insincerity.
With Moonraker tipping the Bond balance into absurdity and critical derision, the knee-jerk reaction was to reel in the comedy and Flash-Harry hi-tech gumbo, for a leaner, more realistic form of 007 adventure.
