Sometimes you don’t need a movie to be an introspective complex character study about the human condition. Sometimes you just…want to watch a really cool explosion. I appreciate the audacity of Roland Emmerich’s film career, completely eschewing any form of character development for some truly insane disaster epics like Independence Day or 2012. Moonfall…s right in the middle of Emmerich’s filmmography, stupid fun that’s all surface no substance.
After a harrowing mission where they lost a fellow crew member, astronauts’ Jo (Halle Berry) and Brian (Patrick Wilson) lives went in opposite directions. Jo becomes deputy director at NASA, and Brian is a disgraced former employee, living paycheck to paycheck a shell of his former self. Their pasts come back to haunt them, in the form of the moon. Conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley) discovers Earth’s lunar body now rotating off its axis, and set to collide with Earth in a few weeks, and attempts to warn NASA in any way he can to save our planet from imminent destruction.
For a man that usually eschews characters and reality in general, the fact that Moonfall is especially stupid is saying something. Emmerich’s “understanding” of how NASA operates probably involves reading a kids book on the government agency, using like 3 people to launch a giant space shuttle into orbit and operating from only one headquarters for example. The fact that Emmerich gets John Bradley, Halle Berry, and Patrick Wilson to deliver all these monologues with a straight face and full on commitment makes Moonfall unintentionally hilarious over and over again. And character development? All you usually have to know is each of the leads has someone vulnerable they care for: Halle Berry has an adorable kid and a foreign exchange student (Kelly Yu), John Bradley has an Alzheimer ridden mother, and Patrick Wilson has a malcontent juvenile delinquent of a son, literally called Sonny (Charlie Plummer) so you don’t forget he’s Brian’s son. Anyone not caring for someone is hilariously evil, like the head of NASA who’s only job is to stand in the way of Halle Berry.
But you’re not going to Roland Emmerich films for his characters, unless you’re laughing at them; you’re going to watch something you’ve never seen onscreen before. Moonfall will make you fidgety for the first hour, as nothing really happens other than a giant Los Angeles destroying flood…BORING! Been there, done that. I was starting to get worried…until I heard the phrase “We have to launch before the gravity wave.” Um, WHAT?!?!? From then on, Moonfall taps into that id based part of your heart and soul, as you watch these impossible, epically scoped special effects or insane action sequences. Why is there a snow drifting car chase as the moon’s gravity lifts a city into the air? Who cares, it looks awesome! What is really going on with the moon is perfect stupid fun Emmerich, with an insanely conceived story simply so he can build then immediately destroy more places as he wants.
Like I assume how Roland Emmerich gets all his ideas, I picture Moonfall coming into his head at a concert. He’s at some outdoor Creedence Clearwater Revival show, bopping along. All of a sudden, “Bad Moon Rising” starts playing. And there it is: Emmerich takes the figurative and makes it literal for all the glee my 9-13 year old self wants to see onscreen, again and again.