Directed By Roland Emmerich

Starring – Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley

The Plot – A mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurdling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Berry) is convinced she has the key to saving us all, but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Wilson) and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (Bradley) believe her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find that they might have prepared for the wrong mission.

Rated PG-13 for violence, disaster action, strong adult language, and some drug use

moonfall trailer – YouTube

POSITIVES

If there’s any reason to watch a Roland Emmerich film, it’s for the scope in cinematic achievement that shapes worlds in ways no other films even attempt, and “Moonfall” is certainly no different in this regard. Whether in the unnerving devastation of visuals crippling the familiarity of our world with surprisingly believable C.G, or the hefty influence of rattling sound schemes incorporating the eclipsing designs of resonance that persist beyond our limited frames, the stakes couldn’t be certified any more vividly, granting an unmistakable presence behind the camera who revels in the astonishment of fantastical carnage candy. In addition to this, Emmerich is wise enough to craft an entirely self-aware tonal capacity that breeds fun in the lunacy of the story’s silliness, prescribing instances of humor that stitch a connective tissue to the audience without alienating the stakes and overwhelming circumstances that push urgency in the depth of the narrative. This not only allows the script the freedom to get as silly as it wants to be without ever truly feeling the need to explain itself, but also keeps it from ever attempting the reach of trying to be something intellectually that it rightfully isn’t and never will be. Finally, while the performances from a few familiar faces reek of a paycheck opportunity in the way they constantly underwhelm, the work of Bradley does elicit with it a degree of professionalism and light-hearted appeal that certainly charmed my experience. In a lesser helmed film, his character would easily be the most annoying, especially being a conspiracy theorist who bares more than a striking resemblance to a few people in my own life. However, Bradley instills enough heart and underlining compassion in the arc of his characterization and solidifies what is easily the most memorable and scene-stealing performance in an ensemble with big names he shares the screen with.

NEGATIVES

On the counter side of matters, Emmerich makes movies for people who feel alienated by logic and ensuing intelligence. I say that as a result of a screenplay so dumbfounding in both physics and character motivation, which often over-convolute the landing of a film with such a simplistic premise. I mean think about it, the film’s only requirement is to make the moon literally fall to Earth, and nothing more. Yet it bogs down brain cells with enough heavy-handed expositional dialogue between characters that never feels honest or authentic and conjures up a final half hour in a big reveal that feels like its trio of screenwriters are making things up as the movie persists. This is also a film that lacks originality in a concept that is difficult to even attempt on paper. This comes as a result of several familiar cliches in the Emmerich construct that makes “Moonfall” feel like a greatest hits collection from his prior films, especially in the way each of them figures into the creativity of the film’s script, but also in the derivative appeal of Emmerich quite literally recreating various shots that are littered in his biggest of hits. Things like tech nerds, rude government figures, swerving car chases, a nagging stepparent, and even a quintessential sacrificial lamb are just some of the aspects borrowed from “Independence Day”, “The Day After Tomorrow”, and “2012”, and made worse here with the law of returns feeling derivative and even more detectable from those previous efforts. This certainly makes “Moonfall” a predictable film, but the fault lies in the abundance of its ensuing arc’s, which not only highlights too many characters that the script continuously keeps tabs on, but also forcefully balances an inferior subplot arc to its central premise that bogged the film and its run time down with bland boredom, creating a two hour sit that feels all of the weight of its minutes in constant inconsistency. Continuing with convolution is the anything but subliminal social commentary on the dissection of technological addiction that not only doesn’t have a place in a movie this mindless, but also keeps audiences craving something so bad it’s good from ever fully attaching themselves to a story that periodically borders pretentiousness, solidifying an experience that is so bad it’s awful. If everything mentioned doesn’t steer you away from the engagement, the cheesy lines of simulated dialogue certainly should, in all of its artificial intelligence. Lifeless lines like “If the moon gets a second chance, then so should we” are exchanged with characterization spoon-feedings like an exchange student starting a sentence “As an exchange student…”, as well as “He’s some conspiracy theorist”, in order to keep you from missing the point about certain characters. It does force the audience to hang onto every line of dialogue, but for all of the wrong reasons, sacrificing natural interactions for intention-heavy shoehorning, all in order to suppress three hours of ideas and aspects to two hours of screen time.

OVERALL

Very little about “Moonfall” feels richly authentic in the approach of its repetitious director. From its artificial emotions to its virtual checklist of aging-derived tropes, the film feels like it stands in the eclipsing shadow of better films previously donned from the once inspiring Emmerich, giving us a free fall from grace and space of titanic portions. A disaster movie in every definition of the word.

My Grade: 3/10 or F+