Moonfall (2022)

Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley
Moonfall on IMDb

Moonfall is the latest extravaganza from the modern-day master of disaster himself, Roland Emmerich. But while I usually enjoy his exercises in global destruction a lot, this one is a massive disappointment.

On the surface, this looks like another excursion in the vein of 2012. But apart from one or two disaster concepts, just about everything that made 2012 so entertaining fails in Moonfall. That includes the plot, the characters, and the godawful dialogue.

Suspension of disbelief is of course a requirement for any disaster movie. Emmerich’s direction usually makes me more than happy to ignore the implausibilities of his plots. Not this time. Because not only is the concept mindbogglingly ridiculous – the whole thing is also lazily executed, as if no one gave a shit about the result. Everything is so rushed, stereotypical, and contrived that it feels like it was shot straight from the synopsis, without anyone bothering to work out a script. It’s kind of impressive that the actors manage to keep a straight face.

So, the story: The moon is knocked from its orbit and comes careening towards Earth. A small team of cardboard characters, including a NASA bigwig, a renegade astronaut and a geeky conspiracy theorist will have to save us. Gravity goes haywire and stuff gets destroyed while our heroes work through their relationships. Plus a tacked on crazy science fiction twist. Ugh.

I want to say that the actors soldier on bravely despite the surroundings, but none of them are more than decent here.

You know something is seriously wrong when you’re watching a Roland Emmerich film and not even the actual disaster scenes are very fun. Oh, Roland, what happened?

Rating: 1/5