Moonfall

After sitting down to watch Roland Emmerich’s newest disaster sci-fi, Moonfall, I realized that there are two ways of being mind-blown. For example, watching David Lynch’s masterpiece Mulholland Dr. will completely throw you for a cinematic loop by beautifully collapsing your mind and expectations phenomenally. Moonfall on the other hand seeks to absolutely force audiences to invert common sense and logic for an entire 2 hours of screen time. Now it’s no surprise Emmerich has directed a new disaster sci-fi film as he has been an icon in the genre, but it is the executions of his films that do not particularly excite me when I see a film attached to his name. For as long as I can remember, his many films have been extremely high-budget, nonsensical messes waiting for audiences to eat it up as they still retain a level of entertainment. And it is what makes this film completely and utterly atrocious from beginning to end, and with no silver lining in sight, you will find yourself boggled. 

After the film starts off abruptly, we learn the world is in immediate danger after an ominous force causes the moon to be knocked from its orbit. With little time left, a NASA executive must team up with an ex-astronaut, and a conspiracy theorist in order to rid the world of this world-ending problem. With a plot so simplistic and handled with little care, many would assume the film would focus more on the writing and characters to hopefully carry it from an abomination to a bearable mess, but the film somehow subverts expectations to deliver a monstrosity instead. As stated before, the film begins hastily by presenting a sneak peek at the potential atrocities every pair of eyes will eventually endure. In less than 5 minutes, the film accelerates to dangerous speeds, introducing the characters and threats immediately, giving little time for the scene to breathe. A film needs to take time to introduce characters, allowing audiences to attach themselves to create an emotional connection for future reference. You can only imagine the frustration when these bland characters are shoved into the film in minutes, being given the character depth of a sitcom extra. 

Once the characters are introduced and given the entirety of development in the first 20 minutes of screentime, the film then shifts focus on the plot. And as soon as the plot becomes the focal point, entertainment, and logic are thrown out the window. The film expects audiences to believe that a conspiracy theorist, with little equipment and experience in the field, somehow obtains more knowledge than NASA, a multi-billion-dollar company-funded directly by the government. It is at this point it’s simple to realize just how the writers assume any individual watching is just a clump of cells fascinated by pretty CGI. It is an insult to expect audiences to suspend their disbelief to this extent and to further conjure up another multitude of disgustingly illogical ideas to progress the story. There is no point where a character decides to act intelligently or use a sliver of common sense to solve a problem. 

As you watch the film, you will notice the extremely glaring flaw affecting and dialing the ridiculousness of the film to 10. The pacing and timeline of events become overwhelmingly noticeable and absurd to the point of no return. There is a scene where the news breaks out to the public that the moon is slowly gravitating towards the earth and in the span of what seems to be an hour since the news, every major city is infected by a barrage of riots and destruction. If that wasn’t laughably absurd enough, the literal next shot is of the moon idiotically closer to the earth when only 20 minutes ago, the film was just revealing the 3 months the earth had until the collision. But the film decides to make its next terrible move by writing in the family of Patrick Wilson’s character in for one of the most useless and forgettable subplots. And to make matters worse, Emmerich feels it is essential to the plot to include their journey to a bunker, so for half of the screentime, the film hops back and forth to these lightly sketched characters. The film genuinely expects audiences to be concerned for these subplot characters and their actions for a decent chunk of time. It becomes infuriatingly difficult to fathom the stupidity and lackluster design of the subplot and overall inclusion. 

Moonfall becomes an exhausting burden, wasting the talents of Patrick Wilson, Halle Berry, and Donald Sutherland collectively. The charisma that these actors usually bring forth in a role consistently is somehow dulled down profusely. Each character is so forgettable and lacking, you will forget their name directly after being introduced. At the risk of sounding dramatic, the only aspect of this film worth watching is the stunning visual effects. The film consistently delivers beautiful shots containing masterful CGI and featuring hyperrealist shots of destruction and carnage. A huge shoutout to those visual artists who took the time to meticulously craft visually ravishing feasts. 

Other than the astonishing visual effects, Moonfall at the end of the day becomes an incomprehensibly terrible film. At no point in the writing is there a silver lining or a feat to look forward to as the film crafts unwatchable scenes and characters for 2 hours. It is an abomination of a film, wasting talent and the time of others with a payoff so thin and empty. Watching this film is the equivalent of spending your day watching grass grow on a winter day, completely useless and irrelevant. There should be no reason to take time out of your day to endure this film as it is a cash grab filler looking to make a couple of bucks. Do yourself a favor and skip this intolerable film.