Moonfall

Being a Millennial, I can attest to our generation that it was a great time to be alive with "Independence Day" and "Godzilla" being some of our favorite tween-age blow-up-knock-down action movies to go see with our friends in the theater 3 times in the same day, with campy yet lovable characters like Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. Those were the days. I still enjoy watching those flicks from time to time - not just for the nostalgia. They are still quite entertaining in their own right.

Now we have "Moonfall" some 25 years later. Cut from the same construction paper, but more like pieces of old scripts from Roland Emmerich's late '90s writing room shredder taped together in hopes the characters and dialog would be usable in telling the grandiose destructo-type story instead of just talking props. Speaking of which, I give props to Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and John Bradley (who actually had a solid character to go with his style) for trying, but it simply wasn't enough.

I've listened to commentaries and interviews with Emmerich and I personally think he doesn't have good instincts on how to put a balanced action film together since the mid 2000s (with the ID4 sequel, if you watch the deleted scenes cut what would've been the best and most meaningful scenes of the entire movie) with the aim of just going big and loud, using any means whatsoever. It works...until it doesn't. Action fatigue sets in frequently in this and many of his recent past movies. It's alarming when I am physically incapable of caring less about the world ending than watching these characters attempt to get from beginning to end - in fact, there was no palpable peril despite the entire earth getting properly f'ed up, we only see it in overhead shots of floods and earthquakes and meteorites (I think COVID may have had something to do with not being able to have scenes with dozens of extras on the ground clamoring over each other like in all other action flicks from the days of yore).

However, the concept was intriguing and in my opinion, pretty great. It reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama" but with the Moon instead of a floating cylinder in space. I really did enjoy watching the last 20-30 mins or so play out after an hour and a half of random skipping around characters trying to hatch the plan to get us to that point while trying to make the audience like and/or care. If the script had half the heart and good campiness of something like "Independence Day", it definitely could have kicked my rating up a little.

Wait for streaming.