Hidden ancient civilisations within our Moon has been a staple of science-fiction cinema since the very early days. 120 years ago Georges Méliès presented “Le Voyage dans la Lune” or “A Trip to The Moon” where a team of explorers took a journey to the moon and ran afoul of the aliens there.
It was a fanciful little adventure that would spark off numerous versions peppering the history of Sci-Fi on celluloid over the next century of film and TV adaptations. Moonfall throws in several more Sci-Fi concepts and conceits into the mix such as a hollow moon (instead of a hollow Earth, last seen in Godzilla vs Kong(2021)) and Dyson spheres, and even a peek at a Ringworld concept.
In other words, Moonfall is very much an old-fashioned B-Movie sci-fi flick that wouldn’t be entirely out of place in the 1960s (or earlier) but with a blockbuster sized budget for the destructive effects and visuals that only director Roland Emmerich seems to revel in these days. Of course, it’s very likely critics are going to slam him for that, scientific pundits are going to criticise the science and plausibility, and viewers expecting Independence Day (1996) reminiscence are going to grumble and complain. Others may just check their brains at the door and enjoy the campy silliness.
After all, we have our typical disgraced hero type (Patrick Wilson) being called back to duty to help save the world from a moon that is slowly spiralling towards Earth. Given that is the overall conceit of the plot, I’m pretty sure whatever science they want to present isn’t really going to be up to snuff for the sake of story anyway – not that it’s going to stop people from pointing out obvious issues there. It’s just meant to be convenient and slightly credible after all.
And within the context of the movie, courtesy of your token nerdy and geeky scientific conspiracy pundit (John Bradley) inflicted with a seemingly unnecessary case of IBS (likely to make him more human), it works well enough. Rounding out the key crew, or Hero Team, is our Hero’s ex-work partner (Halle Berry) who is now in charge of the organisation that slighted the Hero in the first place.
I know, I’m bouncing all over the place, but that’s not unlike the story itself as we get a secondary ‘human story’ to cut to every now and then. While the ‘Hero Team’ is dealing with the major disaster, the children of the two ‘normal’ team members endeavour to get to safety on the ground amidst the ‘gravity inversion storms’ and other people behaving like ‘bad guys’ in a survival video game.
Some parts of that are going to either thrill you or elicit laughter at the ludicrousness of the action set-pieces. Either way, it definitely isn’t short on the entertainment value so long as you let yourself go with the flow. If the major stars such as Berry and Wilson are game to go with the conceit of a falling moon and the crazy science, so why not?
Emmerich is in his element and he does it well enough to build a concept worthy of more. Like with say, Skyline (2010), it has the potential to go further now that a problematic first entry is out of the way. Probably so long as Emmerich doesn’t have to wait another 20 years to pick up the story and his cast is on board to revisit this particular universe.
Sure, some people might be reluctant to band together in the cinema, but watching this on the big screen with friends is just about the best way to have a decently enjoyable time to kill a couple of hours… and more hours ripping the movie apart sharing what you’d hate and love about the whole endeavour.
Yeh, you’ll either love it or hate it. I doubt there’s much middle ground. Just don’t take it too seriously. It is what it is, and that’s all it really needs to be- ordinary humans dealing with the typical ‘death from above’ you’d find in superhero movies these days.
Rating: 🌔🌕🌖 /5
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Written by Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser, Spenser Cohen
Stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Reilly, Michael Peña, Zayn Maloney, Kelly Yu Wen Wen, and Donald Sutherland
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Berning Away 
[…] pundits to rip apart the time-travel shenanigans, probably with less vitriol as they would give Moonfall. Not that it will deter most from a nice mostly family-friendly jaunt through an entertaining […]
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