by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $10.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Patrick Wilson, Halle Berry, Charlie Plummer, John Bradley, Michael Pena
Intro:
... not a good movie. It certainly looks every bit its nine-figure budget, but is determined to keep one-upping its own ridiculousness like it’s an esoteric poker game.
After a lopsided but well-intentioned step into more prestige territory with Midway, disaster auteur Roland Emmerich is back in his conspiratorial wheelhouse. And the hypothesis du jour on offer here is the Hollow Moon theory (likely because the Iron Sky sequel and Godzilla Vs. Kong already beat him to the centre of the Hollow Earth), with our heroes racing to stop the Moon from crashing into the Earth and wiping out every person and national monument in its wake.
For the first two-thirds of the film, it is business as usual for Emmerich and co; a slice’s worth of characterisation spread over an entire loaf of actors, maintaining the director’s pedigree of mismanaging even the best talent (Charlie Plummer could not look more out-of-place here). Thankfully, there are far less faces here than his usual shotgun-spray approach, with Patrick Wilson, Halle Berry, and even John Bradley’s resident ‘free thinker’ given enough to work with as the central trio.
The daunting mood is palpable, and while the conspiracy theorising isn’t as cute as it used to be in the ‘90s-‘00s (what used to be innocent and kooky has turned unpleasant in recent years thanks to the likes of InfoWars), it brings back that wide-eyed populism that made Emmerich’s ‘prime’ [Stargate, ID4] so watchable.
And then the third act hits, where the director manages to hit both a new high and a new low. On the positive, the CGI for both the Moon and the force that has shifted it are astounding, some of the best of any modern disaster flick. And on the negative, the story, which had maintained a degree of formality up to this point, taking a nose-dive into the goofiness.
It’s like the silliest parts of Contact and Interstellar slammed into each other, but without either of their scientific foundations. As a result, the film gets crushed in the middle, abandoning any semblance that this is something worth taking seriously.
Moonfall is not a good movie. It certainly looks every bit its nine-figure budget, but is determined to keep one-upping its own ridiculousness like it’s an esoteric poker game. But considering the director’s averages, that’s just as much a recommendation as it is a condemnation, as it’s still remarkably entertaining as a trash fire. If nothing else, for a recent film about a celestial object colliding with the Earth, it’s a hell of a lot funnier than Don’t Look Up, however unintentionally.
