Moonfall – An Absurdly Dumb Disaster Movie

Roland Emmerich has done it again and, if no one intervenes, his long-running series of disaster films are only going to continue to get bigger and stupider. Interpret that however you wish; films such as Moonfall have historically had a very niche audience despite the fact that disaster movies don’t tend to be widespread critical successes. For those who like the disaster movie subgenre, they will most likely enjoy Moonfall and for those who don’t, they likely still won’t.

When it comes to Moonfall, the story is absolutely awful. While this genre has never been known to feature the best screenplays, this film for whatever reason just kept twisting, turning, and throwing new plot points out of left field. The story essentially felt like Emmerich pinned a bunch of dumb disaster film tropes to a dartboard and threw several darts at the board in order to put the story together. Now without getting into spoilers, the film’s final act is truly an unbelievable and incredible sight to behold for how absurdly dumb it is. The actual premise of this film revolves around something that has knocked the moon off its normal orbital path, resulting in devastation as it comes increasingly closer to Earth. The circumstances leading to why this would ever be the case were definitely out there which will inevitably lead to some audiences laughing but for all the wrong reasons.

That being said, Moonfall as a film wasn’t necessarily all doom and gloom. Its biggest positive, as has been the case for many of Emmerich’s disaster films, was its visual effects. Despite some obvious moments of green screen and/or CGI, the visuals were convincing and enjoyable for the most part. Despite that, it’s easy to have wanted a little more action and destruction to be had but for what the film did deliver was still cool to witness. Meanwhile in terms of its performances, Bradley deserves some credit for bringing some decent comedy to the film as KC Houseman who also happened to be the only character remotely worth caring about throughout the film’s running time. There was just something charming and endearing about the weird Ricky Gervais-Josh Gad hybrid energy he brought to the table with his performance.

At the end of the day, again without getting into any spoilers, this film may not be the end of the story. While some audiences may be happy about that fact, many others will find it unnecessary. Whether or not this film will continue beyond this point and become a franchise obviously remains to be seen and will almost certainly be based on its success at the box office. Ultimately, audiences will surely find a something to enjoy in Moonfall as the film will probably find itself its own devoted fan base alongside other disaster film, making it the perfect popcorn movie.

(original review)

still courtesy of Lionsgate

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