Review 2015 Film No. 1 | Moonraker

This year I am reviewing one film per month for the blog - in order to spread cinematic love as well as increase my own poor filmic knowledge base. So, a week or so into February, welcome to January's review - Moonraker! Moonraker is the third book and 11th film in the British cult classic James Bond adventures. Directed by Lewis Gilbert and fronted by Roger Moore, the film has all the best bits of Bond that you would expect - the baddie (Hugo Drax played by Michael Lonsdale), the gadgets, the chases, the casual sexism... The chases through Venetian canals, the Amazon jungle and Rio are superb, and Moore's acting is a nice mix alongside the female characters Corinne Dutour and Holly Goodhead. 

Released in 1979, the film also neatly reflects the 1969 American Moon landing. Ian Fleming's original book was published in 1955, years before the mission, and so was almost entirely prophetical and caught the political mood of the time in the anti-Red post-War States. After all that was put into the film, with its record-breaking $34 million production cost, you might wonder why it only gets mediocre reviews and two-star ratings. It is the eleventh film in one of the biggest film/book franchises of all time. I think that partly speaks for itself.

Review 2015 No. 3 | Live And Let Die by Ian Fleming

“You start to die the moment you are born. The whole of life is cutting through the pack with death. So take it easy. Light a cigarette and be grateful you are still alive as you suck the smoke deep into your lungs. Your stars have already let you come quite a long way since you left your mother’s womb and whimpered at the cold air of the world.” 

With these words in his second James Bond book, Ian Fleming reminds us of something. In the majesty and mystery of the world of the secret service agent - the films, the long-limbed actors, the wealth - we lose sight of one pertinent fact; Fleming was more than a half-decent writer. Here Fleming works with a fundamental of writing - write about what you know - taking Bond on a journey through Harlem, Florida and Jamaica, places he knew well. This novel has all the best bits of the films and more - scuba diving, an international baddie chase ('Mr Big' in Live and Let Die), a Bond girl - and I would argue it is a difficult card to trump. If Fleming follows a trend I strongly believe in - that writer's tend to release the majority of their creative energy in their first book or two - then it will be. The jury's out, as I still have 10 or so of the other Bond novels to digest. I say SAY YES to this one!