You remember Roland Emmerich? He is the guy who directed such disaster films like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012. Most of the time people hear his name, they think of him as a director who only makes dumb disaster movies with no substance. I am saying this because I think he is a very unappreciated director. His action scenes are always fun to watch, you can feel the danger in the situations, and the concepts can be pretty cool at times. That's why I was looking forward to Moonfall.
Moonfall is a film about the moon going out of orbit and crashing onto Earth. By that description alone, you can get the idea of what this film will be like-a dumb, popcorn movie. But when I watched the film, it actually was better than I thought. The characters were actually kind of charismatic and interesting to watch, the special effects were amazing, and the best part was the mystery to it. For most of the film, I was intrigued by the mystery of what is happening with the moon. Why is it moving to the earth? In the trailer they say the line, "The Moon has been around for millions of years.", suggesting that there is something about the moon we don't know about. It was like a mystery/horror film. So, for the first 3rd I think it stood strong from what I was expecting it to be... but then they went inside the moon. All this speculation about the moon maybe being a living thing with a brain or something like that, it all thrown out the window for the good old explanation, ALIENS!
Actually, it is revealed that people from millions of years ago created the moon until a big alien killed them. And now all that mystery and all that intrigue is thrown out the window for the simple answer, it was aliens. Then they make all the scientific stuff complicated for the finale-because of course their target audience are rocket scientists-and then the American military decides to blow up the moon. SERIOUSLY, THE UNITED STATES MILITARY DECIDES TO BLOW UP THE MOON AND NOT ONE PERSON HAS THE BALLS TO TELL THEM THAT'S A BAD IDEA? IS THE MILITARY SO STUPID THAT THEY THINK A BUNCH OF MISSLES CAN TAKE OUT AN EINTIRE PLANET. Hell, they wait until the moon is right next to Earth to do it! I get it's not supposed to be realistic but did everyone in the United States Military flunk out of school?
At the end of the day, it was never going to be a good film, but it had potential to be very interesting. The mystery was intriguing, some of the characters were fun to watch, and the cinematography can be very good at times. But at the end of the day, I guess it did what it wanted it to do, be another disaster film that will be dated in 10 years. Emmerich isn't a great director, but I hope one of these days he can make a movie that stays with you after you watch it, a movie that you remember and is pretty good, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Final Score: 5/10
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