Moonfall

It's been nice having a couple week break from the movies, not going to lie. Part of that is because my *real* job has been kicking my butt with long hours, but in general I've enjoyed a "reset" of sorts from getting back to this hobby hard last year. 

Moonfall was always on my list as a film so preposterous - and from Roland Emmerich - that I was going to see it out of curiosity. The director can be a bit hit or miss, with his most recent effort, Midway, being a film I enjoyed more than critics - largely thanks to some awesome scenes scattered throughout - but it had its problems for sure.

Emmerich's films tend to emphasize the dumb and preposterous while dialing up the spectacle so you can see how for a war film, that approach doesn't work well. For something like Moonfall however? Where the moon is literally falling/crashing into the earth? 

I say bring it on baby!

And ultimately, Moonfall does bring it on - it's basically a full, sci-fi send, much to the benefit of the film, but it's also got some of the worst tendencies of this genre that not only drag the film downward, but feel like cliches and box-ticks that could have been avoided to make a shorter, leaner, and much better film. 

For starters, if you're going to a film about the moon falling into earth, I would hope you checked your mind at the door. That sentence is the literary equivalent of "dumb fun" and if you're the same type of person that goes to Fast and Furious films talking about physics, then kindly skip this movie too! Past that, there's "dumb" very interesting stuff in Moonfall and "dumb" way-less-interesting stuff. The film's biggest sin is giving us a group of people who remain on earth that we begrudgingly follow as they try to survive the unsurvivable. This group is a combination of characters - most related to our core three - that have had a collective eight, maybe ten lines of dialogue before they're left on earth. It almost feels intentional in that way because I legitimately thought Brian Harper's (Patrick Wilson) son was a mute for half the film. The stuff back on earth gives us perspective of all that destruction, sure, but it's quite honestly painful every time the film switches back. These characters have no set up and are so uninteresting, including a woefully misused Michael Pena, that I almost wish the film had scrapped all the stuff on earth once our heroes went to space. OR, even better, Emmerich would have realized "Damn, I haven't set up these characters at all!" and he could have just shown earth getting torn apart and removed the human story. The result would have been likely a near-90 minute film instead of a 2 hour one, and we'd be looking at a much higher end score here. 

An unlikely trio, but an entertaining one!

The Freedom Tower's still standing!!

That's because Moonfall, when it's focusing on the mission, is captivating. I was surprised how quickly the moon falling toward earth is announced and from there - except for the useless earth-bound human moments - it moves swiftly. Eventually, it shifts into full blown science fiction with some preposterous, absurd, bonkers, and very fun ideas that I was totally digging. Spoilers will be avoided here, but it's genuinely an interesting and very fun film anytime we seem to be with our core heroes: Patrick Wilson, Halle Berry, and John Bradley. On paper, they feel like an odd pairing, but in practice, Berry and Wilson have great, platonic chemistry and are willing to play full-out while Bradley is a conspiracy theorist character who's not super annoying about it and brings some genuine heart to the film. His humor often falls flat, which is more the writing's fault, but it doesn't hurt the film all that much. 

In an effort to make my reviews shorter this year to save some time, I'll end here because there's really not much else you need to know about Moonfall. It eventually splits into two parallel films, one of which is a science fiction blast with a wonderful cast, and the other is a disaster spectacle with some of the most uninteresting characters I've probably ever seen in a movie. It's those latter tropes that - had Emmerich avoided - we'd probably be looking at one of his best movies in years.

CONS

• Minor, but there was opportunity for a very sci-fi original score here and instead we get a generic one
• Some horrendously awkward green screen usage. Why do we need to use special effects to film Patrick Wilson at the Griffith Observatory?!?
• Writing isn't great. Most of Bradley's humor falls flat
• Once the movie splits into two groups, the earth group (aside from showcasing the destruction) is useless and a massive drag on the film. Emmerich should have eliminated the cliché and killed them...now that would have been a surprise!
• Film is way too long because of this group too

PROS

• Our central trio of Wilson, Berry, and Bradley is an endearing one and they have good chemistry together
• Fantastic special effects and very loud. I saw it in a big theater and it was worth it. I always appreciate Emmerich's ability to say "what if?" and put it on screen
• Moves at a brisk pace pretty much from the get go
• Once our crew separates and starts going down the science fiction route, I was having a blast with it!

Rath's Review Score | 6.5/10