Ah Roland Emmerich, you destructive, loud, glorious son of a bitch. Once again, you’ve made a movie that’ll run and re-run on the FX network from now until the next apocalypse film you scrounge together the cash to shoot. Moonfall is another classic Emmerich doomporn destructogasm of CGI and flimsy human conflicts recycled and repackaged for the kids who like space and star wars.
The Day after 2021:
Independence Day
For those of you who are curious, Moonfall is literally just 2012, Independence Day and The Day after Tomorrow, but in space. It borrows heavily from 2012’s trope of “rich stepdad replaces deadbeat has-been biodad. Stepdad dies heroically, and the biodad steps in and bangs his ex wife”. Except in this case it’s implied he bangs his co star Halle Berry too, because her ex husband (presumably and forgettably) died. Threesome! Moonfall also follows the “big tidal wave destroys New York” trope, but that’s mainly because Emmerich hates New York and everyone in it, but you can’t blame him for that.
The film is essentially just Emmerich smashing his favorite Lego sets, going ‘brrr’ with toy spaceships and throwing his hot wheels across the bed pretending they’re jumping across an earthquake, the way they did in 2012. Seriously, the dude has literally just made a space flavored hot dog film made of all of his other movies. The climax involves the humans flying into a giant alien structure and blowing it up, solving the crisis ala Michael Bay or Will Smith in acclaimed documentary Independence Day.
Capitalism in Space
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I had to google this asian chick, because she was infinitely more relevant and interesting than Kaspersky, despite being completely irrelevant to the movie and having no traits of interest at all. Fuck you Kaspersky. Ex-astronaut Jocinda Fowler, played by Halle Berry, is shown being handed a cup of coffee by a random, unintroduced Asian woman in her own home at 4am. My first instinct was, “Wow. Two women of color, living in the same home, following a scene where the mother looks wistfully upon her child in a mindless Hollywood movie? LESBIANS.” Instead, this character, who was unnamed until I looked her up, is actually an exchange student and a caretaker. Talk about depth, amirite? Kelly Yu plays a sort-of-love-interest for star Patrick Wilson’s on-screen criminal white trash son, and literally a babysitter. It’s… about as much as I expected.
Did I wish we had a non-heterosexual couple in this movie? Yes.
Is it because I’m always horny and am simultaneously watching interracial lesbian porn while writing this review? Maybe.
Does Kelly Yu have any business being in the movie other than her Chinese investor relations? No.
Moonfall suffers from a case of “two decent movies getting shoved into one long, stupid movie” syndrome. The first half is classic, ‘stupid science, you’re gonna kill us all!’ end-of-the-world tropes, but the second half of the movie is actually kind of interesting. While the first half set up the end of the world, the climax answers some unasked questions about the origins of this silly apocalypse. This explanation involves competing AI’s, the origins of life on Earth, advanced ancient human civilizations, genocide, refugees, Dyson Spheres, Death Stars and some fairly interesting questions and answers regarding the formation of life. I mean again, it’s a stupid Hollywood movie designed to sell the new 2022 Lexus NX, the thrill of a lifetime and a ride you’ll never forget.
The actual science behind a lot of this crap is absolute trash, but I didn’t come here to watch something like Ad Astra or . I risked my life to see a movie in theaters because I wanted to watch Roland Emmerich throw the moon at some motherfuckers. That being said, I do wish we’d gotten a stupid, unexplained apocalypse movie, and then another, related, high-concept sci fi movie regarding the origins of this apocalypse. Sort of like what the Cloverfield universe did.
In a nutshell, however, Moonfall is another unremarkable and, disappointingly, uninspired, entry into Emmerich’s filmography. I suggest you shut your brain off, don’t think about the science too much, and just enjoy the spectacle. I highly suggest you sneak in a few shooters and pour them into your concession drink before the movie starts to really help you slog through the truly unnecessary first half of the movie.
4/10.
Also, Samwell Tarly essentially just turns into Princess Yue, so if you wanna watch a Game of Thrones x Avatar the Last Airbender crossover, go watch this shit.
Originally published at http://85scenesreviews.wordpress.com on February 5, 2022.
