Moonfall

• Co-Written, Directed, and Produced by Roland Emmerich
• January 31, 2022 (Los Angeles) / February 4, 2022 (US and UK) / March 25, 2022 (China)

Two former astronauts along with a conspiracy theorist discover the truth about the Moon when it leaves its orbit.

I am a big fan of the disaster genre. Something about them is continuously appealing to me. While the classics films such as The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, or Airport are my jam I’m definitely down for newer ones since modern special effects allow for bigger disasters and bigger danger. So when I heard about Moonfall I was certainly game despite individuals not really embracing it.

It involves the conspiracy theory that the Moon is actually an artificial structure. Listen to Coast to Coast AM if you’re ever curious as to why some have embraced this. I’m sure at some point they’ll cover it again. In this case there is proof and NASA apparently covers it up. Plus NASA shelves their solution because of budget concerns. Huh? It certainly makes the rest of the plot possible but makes no sense when you think there is a threat to human existence.

One of several things Moonfall does wrong is have far too much humor. Humor can work to lighten the mood but what this does here is harm the overall story. It undercuts almost entirely any tension or excitement Roland Emmerich was building. It was much closer to a disaster comedy than a strictly disaster film. It does what MCU films do by having a punchline every few minutes.

For the level of devastation the concept entails and all the steps one would assume are necessary to accomplish any space mission the cast feels, well, too small. There are numerous characters that come and go only as needed but those that stick around to get minimal development is extremely tiny. They are not developed enough for you to care when they die or are forced out of the narrative. And if somebody makes a big sacrifice you should care about them.

The important part of this disaster film is the moon mission. That’s where the excitement is. That’s where the disaster is. But they try to pull a Deep Impact and have a story taking place on Earth but what happens on Earth feels like a totally different film. It is like they combined two separate movies into one. Individually both have merits but together not so much. You can have an exciting disaster film or a human-interest story that takes place during a disaster. But you can’t combine the two extremes.

Maybe Movie A was not that long nor was Movie B so the decision was made to Frankenstein this up into an unfocused two hours. Is this about the devastation on Earth? Is it about the threat of an alien AI? Is it about the assorted characters’ issues? Roland Emmerich does not seem to know and neither will you.

The special effects are good. Not great. Just good. The scenes of the devastation on Earth are not nearly as convincing as the spaceship environment. And weirdly in the super structure environment they show spaceships that never gets used. Roland Emmerich cared more about space stuff than the devastation.

Perhaps its main issue is there’s a clear indication for a sequel. The closing scenes in this hint at more story to come. All things considered it would most likely be a giant battle against the AI. Guns and explosions. Or maybe it is that rather than have the actually heroic character save the day they have the comic relief save it which does not fit with the character at all.

Moonfall had the potential to be at the minimum a guilty pleasure but because of excessive humor, poorly done characters, and unfocused plot it loses any strong potential. It only makes it to ‘okay’ occasionally. If you choose to watch this you won’t feel disappointed but it’s not something you need to seek out.