Roland Emmerich has made so many disaster movies that we now know what we can fully expect from him. Although this is true, we can often be surprised with some twists that he sprinkles into his movies. He without a doubt is a sci-fi nerd that loves space and destruction. Most known for Independence Day, he proves to be a director that has big ambitions. Within his filmography, there has been some missed opportunities and some not so great movies. With his latest movie, Moonfall, he brings back his audience for another out of this world ride. The movie follows super powerhouse stars, Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson on a space adventure like no other. The moon has fallen out of orbit and is hurdling towards Earth. A doomsday story that we haven’t seen on the big screen before. This movie is absolutely ridiculous, unbelievable, dumb and chaotic. This is actually a compliment I’m giving. Moonfall is not gonna be for everyone. It’s pure popcorn fun where the viewer must turn their brains off for 2 hours and just enjoy the ride. Far from perfect, this movie was indeed a lot of fun.
The idea alone for this movie is very grand in-scale. There were a plethora of scenes where there were some major destruction going on. Fans of the director are going to the movies expecting this. These fans will not be disappointed. When shit hits the fan, it really swings and hits hard. Entire cities and locations get wiped out in a blink of a second and it was awesome to see it happen on the big screen. That being said, there were many moments where these characters should not have survived. The amount of dumb luck the main characters have is hard to believe. Patrick Wilson and Halle Berry do an incredible job with their performances and usually that’s what keeps the movie most grounded. My favorite character and in my opinion had the best character arch, is KC, played by John Bradley. This character grows a lot and by the end of the movie, he is the one we are all truly rooting for. As for the side characters, there was never enough character development to really care about them. The relationships between the characters never really made any sense or believable. This is what hurt the story the most and really takes you out of the movie.
It is awesome to see that this is the first big budget movie of the year. It has been estimated that it cost them roughly $150 million dollars to make. With such a large budget, I found many inconsistencies of how good this movie looked. Everything in Space looked amazing and gorgeous to look at. While the scenes on Earth seemed very unpolished and lacked from crisp visual effects. It was never enough to take away from what the plot was going for. I just found myself pretty distracted from the visuals because I know it could have been better. With a runtime of 2 hours on the other hand, there were plenty of scenes that were not necessary and could have easily been cut out. In fact, there are some characters in this movie that served no real purpose to the story at all. The structure of the movie seemed as destructive as the moon falling to Earth. Although there are many moments where my jaw dropped, there were also moments where I also cringed. To be fair it was very well balanced and I did leave the theater more happy then disappointed.
Overall Moonfall is a movie that people will either love or hate. There are a lot of great scenes to be experienced on the big screen and I think a lot of people will truly enjoy it for what it is. The movie is far from perfect and contains some cringe level amount of dialogue, visual effects and story. I do appreciate what Roland was able to accomplish with this movie. He truly knows what he loves and is very self aware of what his movies bring to the table. If I were to recommend this movie, I would tell people to see this on the biggest screen you can. With Covid still being a main issue, that may indeed be hard for a lot of movie-goers. I had a blast watching this in IMAX and felt that I got exactly what I thought I would get out of this movie. The movie releases in theaters this Friday February 4th.
Score: 64/100
Images Courtesy of Lionsgate