ROBERT COTTON Hugo Drax is loads of fun, which is the problem here. He's a witty rewrite of Dr. No in yet another attempt to rewrite YOLT, only this time it's INTENTIONALLY a comedy. Drax's deadpan delivery comes from nowhere and goes nowhere, quickly. He has menace, but it keeps being tempered by humor that comes from the screenwriter, not the situation the characters are in. The actor is game, but he seems to be playing badminton in the midst of a rugby match. And lastly, I would seriously comment on the character's lack of physical threat, but he's up against an older, slightly overweight Roger Moore, which in most dictionaries is listed as the actual definition of a "Moot Point". Chiang is a good old-fashioned sneering henchman. He manages the only physical threat to Bond and their battle royale is an action highlight. Once Chiang is gone, we're left with... Jaws Mark 2. The scene in the alleyway is his best in the film. Pure menace, reminds us what a good beginning the character had in the opening of the previous film. From there, the character degrades to b-grade comic book levels. One finds oneself missing the theatricality and character development of Ed Wood's favorite behemoth, Tor Johnson. Ah Tor, we hardly knew ye ... BILL KOENIG Fleming´s Hugo Drax, with his scarred face and obnoxious manners, was one of Ian Fleming´s most memorable villains. Michel Londale´s Drax is forgettable except for an occasional line (“See that some harm comes to him.’). Big mistake bringing Jaws back. If you watch carefully, Jaws never kills anybody in this movie, completing his transformation into Eon´s version of Wile E. Coyote. JAMES McMAHON Hugo Drax - Cut loose from Fleming's character background, but free also of the gaudy facial disfigurement, Michael Lonsdale could have been capable of so much as Hugo Drax.  I've always liked him and wish he could have been used in the service of a better script.  The film's a mess, but if you just watch Michael Lonsdale, you'll see he's got the goods.  Like the best Bond villains, Drax has a calm assurance about him.  Even that can't stand up to the outer space shenanigans he's forced to perform. Jaws - Back again, and much much worse.  No longer just comic relief, Jaws becomes an outright embarrassment.  From his flapping arms, to his diminutive love interest, it's out of the frying pan and into a very, very big fire. Chang - The most inept would-be killer of all time, Chang chooses to use a Shinai as his weapon.  A Shinai is used in Kendo, Japanese fencing, specifically because it is so hard to hurt anyone with it.  It's like using a wiffleball bat to try to knock someone's head in.  Typically preposterous of Moonraker, the nadir in the Bond series. DEBORAH LIPP I love the "I'm so crazy I don't even want money" aspect of the scheme, I love the really mad mad genius. But can we all agree on something? Michael Lonsdale never moves his lips. Go ahead, put the DVD in and check, I'll wait. As regards Jaws, I almost don't want to talk about it. This is the problem with bringing back popular characters; writers can never leave well enough alone.

ED WERNER Hugo Drax is going to destroy all life on the planet by releasing nerve gas into the earth's atmosphere from his own space station and repopulate the planet with his own hand picked master race. This kind of plot would maybe have been acceptable in the late 1950's or early 1960's, but not in 1979. This is the second movie in a row, where the villain wants to wipe out the worlds population because he doesn't like the direction we are going in.  Apart from the lame plot, Drax has to be one of the dullest Bond villains. Michael Lonsdale is probably a very good actor, but the man is very sedentary, his lips don't even move when he speaks! The other problem with Drax, is that he is constantly surrounded by extremely elaborate sets, ranging from his French chateau, the launch site in South America and his space station. When you combine all this stuff in the background with his sleepwalking performance and monotone delivery, you could probably have just used a narrator and gotten the same results. TOM ZIELINSKI Hugo Drax - Remake of a remake of a remake?  Second consecutive film wherein the villain wants to destroy the world, this time to build a utopia in space.  Feh.  Michael Lonsdale sleepwalks throughout.  He hires on Jaws for some ungodly reason, who then switches up and sides with Bond.  Pretty bad foresight there, Hugo.  The dialogue is weak ("Why did you break off the encounter with my pet python?") which is surprising considering the talent of screenwriter Christopher Wood and his excellent novelization.  (The same can be said of The Spy Who Loved Me.)  A really weak villain in a really weak film. Jaws - Popular with kids, the producers decide (inexcusably) to bring the character back.  Played for laughs and apparently catering to juvenile tastes, the character has been reduced to a negligible threat of a henchman.  It's inexplicable and a big reason why Moonraker is such a bad James Bond film.  Then there is the start of a mini-trend where the bad guy turns good.  Bad decisions, bad execution, just bad all around. Chiang - What did this guy do except have a mediocre fight with Bond in a glass factory and turn the knob up to eleven on the centrifuge?  Utterly forgettable. PAUL BAACK I'm probably in the minority, but I generally like Michael Lonsdale's Sir Hugo Drax. Comparisons to a constipated Bassett hound notwithstanding, I find his lugubrious manner to be entertainingly unsettling -- he's very much a man living in his own world. His super-snarky way of speaking, going right up to the point of directly insulting, is a nice Fleming-esque touch (courtesy screenwriter Christopher Wood). I think he's the first Bond villain to commit his crimes out of sheer ennui, rather than greed or ideology. He's so rich that he's got nothing left to do, so he may as well wipe out and repopulate the earth. Chiang doesn't have much to do, other than fight with and get killed by James Bond. Still, I like the way he silently pads around the Drax properties, doing his master's bidding like some sort of trained, but lethal, animal. Jaws is back, sad to say, in a series of increasingly embarrassing appearances, culminating in his getting a girlfriend and helping 007 save the day. One can only hope he burnt up on reentry into Earth's atmosphere, and will never be seen again.

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