Moonfall (2022) Review!!

Synopsis – In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it.

My Take – Looking at his filmography especially features like Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 10,000 BC (2008), and 2012 (2009), it is quite apt to say that filmmaker Roland Emmerich is worthy of the title “master of disaster”.

His latest foray into disaster-as-art on the big screen also reaffirms his love for global catastrophes as it sees the moon falling out of orbit and start coiling its way toward Earth, resulting in environmental disasters and setting the clock on humanity’s impending doom.

Considerably a remarkable idea for popcorn entertainment, but only if it wasn’t presented so unremarkably, and so devoid of fun.

Sure, the expensive special effects are astonishing to look at, yet the film never manages to rise above its hodgepodge of retread ground, especially the artistry director Emmerich is known for, despite being more or less a mashup of his two wheelhouses i.e. alien contact and cataclysmic disasters.

The biggest trouble is, the film barely delivers on the trailer’s promise of a throwback disaster film from the one-time king of the genre. There are just too many characters, too many redemption arcs and a surprising third act that dives deep into fevered conspiracy theories and bonkers science fiction, all stitched together in a mechanical and uninspired fashion, leading to nothing but unintentional hilarity and a world of missed opportunity.

As a result, the version of this film that exists in the imagination, based on its various trailers, ends up being much more delightful, intriguing, and awe-inspiring than this silly, overstuffed sci-fi that actually ended up on screen.

The story follows Jocinda Fowler (Halle Berry) and Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), two astronauts who ten years ago were involved in a mission that went sideways resulting in the death of their colleague. While Brian was publicly dismissed especially due to his insistence that he witnessed an extraterrestrial intelligent entity, Jocinda manages to keep her job at NASA, moving into a top management with time.

But now, when astronomers announce that the moon has suddenly shifted from orbit and approaching Earth so rapidly that the next three months will last only three weeks, at which point it will disintegrate, Jocinda reaches out to Brian for help, as it inevitably turns out, he had once successfully landed a spacecraft that had lost all power.

Joined by KC Houseman (John Bradley), a conspiracy theorist/amateur astronomer, the three lift off in a race to stop the moon before Jocinda’s Department of Defense higher-up ex-husband, Doug (Eme Ikwuakor), shoots nuclear missiles at it.

Meanwhile, Brian’s ex, Brenda (Carolina Bartczak), flees with her second husband, Tom (Michael Peña) and their daughters, to Aspen, while Brian’s son Sonny (Charlie Plummer) is tasked with driving Jocinda’s young son Jimmy (Zayn Maloney) and Michelle (Kelly Yu), an exchange student who takes care of Jimmy, to the military bunker before the lunar collision occurs.

Director Roland Emmerich is best known for his quintessentially utterly absurd blockbusters that are often packed with many iconic moments and striking visuals that end up transcending their usually derivative plot, and his latest is a clear attempt to recapture that magic. But the film’s script committing the storyteller’s sin of not opening with the most interesting stuff first.

The first half of the film is so listless that instead of rolling your eyes at the copious absurdities you find yourself yearning for something really ludicrous to happen. The film ends most of its time on introductions, several enormous time skips, and subsequent re-introductions, all in service of slowly and painstakingly setting up countless uninteresting estranged relationships that are supposed to function as the film’s emotional core.

And just when the film starts to head towards the interesting bits i.e. the much advertised destruction, the film keeps cutting away to the boring central mission and the supporting family members trying to outrun dangers elsewhere. Seriously, nothing can invest you in a scene about scavengers fighting over gas station supplies while at that very same moment, the film’s leads are learning the most fundamental secrets about the origin of life.

To top it all, in the third act the film shifts gears into something that involves ancient aliens, nanobot swarms, and the natural satellite we took for granted actually being a hollow mega-structure filled with advanced technology, which obviously doesn’t work as dumb fun because the script from Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser and Spenser Cohen is astoundingly stupid and hollow.

Thankfully, the CGI delivers. In one particular sequence midway through the film, a space shuttle launches into the sky amid an onrushing tidal wave caused by the moon’s shifting orbit. It’s the sort of high-stakes scene that could either come off as breathtakingly epic or unbelievably silly, but it’s executed with such audacious sincerity that it ends up becoming one of the most memorably triumphant moments in a film filled with dramatic flourishes.

In the aforementioned scene and elsewhere throughout the film, the film shows no shortage of confidence in what it does well, offering one complicated, jaw-dropping blend of visual effects and stunt work after another as it follows both the astronauts and the characters on the ground.

Patrick Wilson, Halle Berry, and John Bradley all deliver perfectly fine performances, made even more impressive by their ability to utter lines that would make less-accomplished actors question their career paths. While Michael Peña, Charlie Plummer, Carolina Bartczak, Kelly Yu, and Eme Ikwuakor are effective enough. However, Donald Sutherland‘s conspiracy-minded cameo is an utter waste. On the whole, ‘Moonfall’ is a dull and erratic disaster flick with only its visuals worth lauding about.