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For some reason, knowing the hack directors from my youth, like Roland Emmerich, are still making movies gives me a strange sense of comfort. Back in the mid-1990s, the likes of Emmerich, Joel Schumacher and Michael Bay were giving the average audience what they wanted — and exactly what the critics didn’t want.
Cheesy, schlock, cult classics such as Schumacher’s Batman Forever (1995), Bay’s The Rock (1996), and Emmerich’s Independence Day (1996) still live on over two decades later through pure nostalgia. Don’t get me wrong, Emmerich’s new disaster flick, Moonfall, is a piece of crap. But if we all watched Independence Day for the first time as adults in 2022, we might think that childhood fave is a little bit crap, too.
In modern day USA, super space fanboy KC Houseman (John Bradley) secretly finds proof that the moon is an AI-based, artificial megastructure that’s orbiting closer and closer to Earth and might destroy the planet. Struggling, retired astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) and fellow former astronaut-turned-NASA Director Jo Fowler (Halle Berry) are reluctant to believe his theory at first, until natural disasters start occurring all over the world and NASA’s control crew is attacked.
Charlie Plummer, Michael Peña, Donald Sutherland, and Kelly Yu co-star. Moonfall is now on record as the highest budgeted independently financed movie at $146M. I don’t know about you, but I really never thought I would see the name ‘Roland Emmerich’ and the label ‘independent filmmaker’ next to each other. Moonfall is goofy as hell, similar to Emmerich’s previous flicks Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow (2004) and 2012 (2009).
🎶 Let the moonchunks fall down & set you free! 🎶 #MOONFALL is now playing everywhere! https://t.co/kc5HoTFBKo. pic.twitter.com/2uPwqH6GjM
— Moonfall (@MoonfallFilm) February 4, 2022
We not only get an artificially strong space monster as our villain in Moonfall, but every natural disaster under the sun — from fires and floods to tsunamis and snowstorms, and explosions and meteor showers. You can’t accuse the film director of not being consistent with his action sequences, even if the logic and execution are usually laughable. But as someone who’s had McG’s Charlie’s Angels (2000) on her list of favorite movies since 6th grade, I’m not exactly in a position to judge anyone for enjoying cheesy blockbusters.
I personally found Moonfall a little boring compared to Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow with the comic relief feeling a bit lazy, too. But Berry’s and Wilson’s past experience as superhero movie leads — Berry in Bryan Singer’s X-Men franchise (2000-2014) and Wilson in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009) — make them naturals as the stars of the new disaster epic. Bradley gives his all as the geeky brainiac and reminds me of a British Josh Gad, while it’s nice to see Plummer back on the big screen five years after his impressive, breakthrough performance in Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete (2017).
If a prestigious disaster drama like Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) is too bleak for you, or Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up (2021) was too anxiety-inducingly frustrating, Moonfall might be the easy, mindless viewing you’re looking for this month.
Do you like mindless fun in the form of disaster flicks? Does Moonfall seem like one you would enjoy? Let us know in the comments!
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