Review: Moonfall

Moonfall is a big, dumb, insanely silly, big-budget sci-fi movie we haven’t seen in a long time. Reminiscent of end-of-the-world blockbusters from the 1990s, director Roland Emmerich has given us an explosive movie that would fit right next to the likes Armageddon or Deep Impact, yet one that also feels weirdly refreshing in today’s cinematic landscape.

Moonfall has a very simple premise: what if the moon fell towards Earth? How may you ask this is happening? Well, I would never spoil that for you, but even if I wanted to, the utter insanity and lunacy of its logic is so absurd, you must see it to believe it.  But with the moon falling towards Earth, it isn’t up to the world to stop it. No, that would make too much sense. Instead, like we’ve seen time and time again, it is up to the United States to save the day, this time by a disgraced astronaut (Patrick Wilson), a NASA executive (Halle Berry), and an online conspiracy theorist (John Bradley), who seems to know more about the moon and its functionality than anyone at NASA or anyone who has been to space. This trio must take a trip to the falling moon and stop what is causing to crash towards Earth to save humanity, but more importantly, save their families and the people they love the most.

Emmerich made a name for himself as a director with his big-budget sci-fi films like Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow and Moonfall can comfortably sit right next to those movies. It is a film that is gigantic in scale, loaded with visual effects and pretty solid action set pieces, all in a preposterous science fiction plot. It starts off a bit rocky, as it really takes its time setting the table before the main course of destruction and chaos. We meet all the main characters, the far-too-many side characters, and learn all about their motivations, though the character motivations are all very basic and the film never even tries to make the characters any more than just plot devices. 

Sitting through useless character development is worth it, however, because when the moon starts falling and we go into space and then inside the moon, that’s when the movie is just flat-out awesome. The visual effects are spectacular and what happens on the moon is wild. It is nothing that I expected and ended up being deeper, and weirder than anything I thought could come from this movie. I was in awe of its audacity and commend the movie for doing something that isn’t conventional.

A lot of Emmerich’s movies have a layer of silliness to them. Whether it is intentional, like some of the witty back-and-forth conversations be Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day, or unintentional, like basically every aspect of Godzilla. Moonfall is full of silliness and absurdity, but it pairs well with the crazy plot. Whether it’s the stupidity of the government officials, some of the dramatic line readings that come off as great comedy, to the science of it all, you really can’t take anything that happens in this movie seriously. I am not a scientist.  I cannot confirm if the science of Moonfall is legitimate. I am sure some of what happens in the movie is realistic, but I am also sure that some of it is not and the stuff that isn’t is closer to fantasy than to science fiction. But the movie doesn’t care about being accurate and you shouldn’t either. Just sit back, relax, and basic in the silly chaos.

Moonfall is a movie they don’t make anymore, but one that used to rule cinemas. It doesn’t care about being realistic and it barely cares about its characters. But it does care about its visual effects, its action, being bold, and entertaining the hell out of you, and it does the latter as good as any movie in 2022.

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