Another Roland Emmerich disaster movie. When I saw the trailer for Moonfall a few years ago, I just burst out laughing at the premise. I didn’t think I would ever see it. But another boring Sunday at home changed my mind.
Independence Day was a really good movie; one of the few disaster movies done really well. Since then, the offerings from Roland Emmerich have really gone downhill.
Although the premise of Moonfal is new, the rest of the movie is the same as any other Roland Emmerich movie.
The movie starts with the protagonist, an astronaut who comes in contact with extraterrestrial technology while in space, but no one believes him. Fast forward a few years, he is now washed up and has separated from his wife. Surprisingly similar to David from Independence Day.
The other main character is an anxiety-ridden, IBS rocking conspiracy theorist one step away from a panic attack. He is always trying to convince people about his theories. He, too, ends up like David, running around with some computer printouts with data needed to convince people. The conspiracy theorist is also a fanboy of Space X and keeps saying “I love Elon”.
Same Tired Formula
The rest of the movie is entirely predictable. Same scenes of chaos and looting. People trying to get out of cities, while the moon falls to earth. The government orders mass evacuation. To where? All this talk about getting to safety. Which place on earth will save you from the moon colliding with earth?
When the government finds out that the moon is out of orbit what do they do? Go to the moon to investigate. A mission is organised and launched within days. Laughable.
Another scene of government retrieving someone to help them with “We need you to come with us, now”.
Also laughable is how they take a graffiti-ed space shuttle from a museum, prep it within days and launch with the crew being decided at the last minute.
The movie is also full of shameless advertisement of Kaspersky. Even the space shuttle systems have Kaspersky antivirus installed.
The only thing good about the movie is the VFX. The scenes of destruction are impressive. The shots from inside the moon are breath taking. Halle Berry’s acting is piss-poor.
Overall, I don’t understand why producers keep financing Roland Emmerich when he has nothing new to offer.