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Moonfall
(Lionsgate Films)
By Lucas Allen
Director Roland Emmerich is widely known as the king of the modern disaster genre with hits like “Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “2012.” He took a break to direct the 2019 remake of “Midway,” but now he’s back to his old hat with his world-destroying magnum opus “Moonfall.” Emmerich directed and co-wrote this film that can be seen as either his greatest hits package with guest stars Michael Bay and Irwin Allen, or just completely stupid.
During a routine mission in space, astronauts Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) and Jo Fowler (Halle Berry) witness a mysterious alien force coming from the moon and attacking the spacecraft. Unfortunately, NASA blames the disaster on Brian to cover up the problem, causing him to spend the next decade alone and estranged from his family. But then, conspiracy theorist K.C. (John Bradley) releases classified information to the world-wide web about the moon going out of orbit. Now a top advisor at NASA, Jo scrambles to figure out the cause of the problem in less than three weeks before Earth could be destroyed.
As society crumbles in chaos, Jo enlists both Brian and K.C. to help develop a quick maneuver mission to transport an EMP device to the moon and detonate it to push the moon back into orbit. The three of them end up going up in space as the Earth quickly experiences gravity-driven tidal waves and fallen pieces of the moon. Meanwhile, Brian’s son Sonny (Charlie Plummer) desperately tries to protect both his stepfather (Michael Pena) and his family from both the debris and evil looters. It starts to become clear for the heroic astronauts that the moon itself is more than a giant piece of rock.
The set-up is all fine and dandy for a move made in 1997. Too bad it’s 2022, and we’re already past our limits on the sci-fi cheese. But this is more like limburger cheese, with Emmerich creating a story full of insane plot points, sappy drama and revelations that would’ve come from the imagination of a pot smoker. It seems the filmmaker likes to take fringe theories and turn them into actual stories like what he did with global warming and the Mayan doomsday prediction. But whatever the case about the moon being created by aliens is just about as facepalming as those moon-landing conspiracy theories.
It doesn’t help that many characters are written as either inept, evil or unlikable, especially those in NASA and the American military. The only character with any real likability and level-headedness is the conspiracy theorist, and it makes the movie all the more laughable. When the movie keeps cutting back and forth between the gravity-defying action and the family stuff, it’s like watching a low-rent TV drama within a big-budget space movie.
Now comes the part in the climax where everything is revealed, and it’s about as spectacularly stupid as it sounds. Just imagine if “2001: A Space Odyssey” was remade in the 1990s, and the extent of that is mind-bogglingly goofy, silly and dumb as you can get. It’s one of those things you have to see to believe, but you still have to go through the rest of the movie’s brainless script to get to that point.
A lot of the acting is below-par with line readings and facial reactions so low, it’s about as amateur as a high school play. It’s embarrassing to watch good actors (even a great one like Donald Sutherland in a small cameo) waste their talent on such atrocious writing and direction that they deserve better. Only Berry, Wilson, and Bradley tried their very best to deliver the craziness of the dialogue, but it’s all not enough to elevate it from severe mediocrity.
Maybe bad movie lovers can get into it more, but “Moonfall” is full of Hollywood drivel and no sense of fun it could have. It’s a 1990s time capsule type that should’ve been best left alone. Not even its world-destruction sequences could get anybody out of the pandemic funk let alone going back to the movies. Because of this, the entire nation owes an apology to Michael Bay’s “Armageddon” and its star Bruce Willis for the heck of it.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: PG-13 (for violence, disaster action, strong language, and some drug use)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 1.75 Stars (Out of Four)
