Moonfall

Since Moonfall's script could not have been devised by even the most consummate conspiracy theorist, there can be no doubt that the filmmakers are not serious. In my opinion, this is a deliberate contribution to the category of not perhaps intentionally stupid, but logic-ignoring and the most insane fear-mongering B-movies of the 50s, 60s or 70s, which pretended to be serious, but were mainly concerned with entertaining the audience and packing cinemas. This is exactly the feeling I had, much stronger than in all of Emmerich's previous efforts. I like his work, but the films that stand out interestingly are 10,000 BC and Midway, which I liked the least by far. Why? Because Emmerich wanted to deliver a serious story on the one hand and a big visual effects spectacle on the other, but the combination didn't work. At the same time, a serious story without lavish effects can certainly be made (The Patriot, Anonymous) as well as overblown visual effects spectacles that don't take themselves seriously, whether they're about saving or destroying our world or another, or just a proper 80s school action flick (the, in my opinion, underrated White House Down). This time he dispensed with the need for any seriousness altogether, coming up with a wacky but really unorthodox plot that allowed him to destroy a bit more and differently than what and how he had been destroying so far. The plot is heavily condensed, a couple of days go by without warning between several scenes, during which something important happens that other films would spend more time on, and meanwhile the giant moon is approaching the Earth, constantly rising and setting, doing doggy stunts with gravity that make many scenes really crazy and funny. For example, the naivety with which they travel back and forth from Earth and solve individual problems is almost Meliés-like. You watch it with a smile, see how nice it looks, enjoy the truly original design of the monster... If I like the naive films that this reminded me of, then I have no reason not to like Moonfall. (04/02/2022)

Thanks Roland! This is the kind of honest bollocks, obviously exaggerated (as it’s based on crazy conspiracies and genre aesthetics of the 50s, and even the 90s) and going full throttle from the start, that has been missing in cinemas for a long time. I don't really understand the complaints about the haphazard logic and the final existential interlude – it's a science fiction movie, not a NASA instructional film. And it's a bloody fun sci-fi, where the deadlines work brilliantly and the deliberately overblown and implausible big-screen plot simply draws you in. Some of the dialogue is admittedly cheesy, and the smoothness of the smoothly narrated Independence Day and 2012 makes up for the overly fast pace in places, but whatever. I was smiling like a little boy and it never ceased to surprise me. Emmerich still does this like nobody else in the business. 75 % (06/02/2022)

In Moonfall, there is not even a trace of anything that made last year’s The Tomorrow War, a B-movie in the same genre, so great (inventive work with clichés, sincere emotions, nice visual stylization). Emmerich disappeared into a black hole. This can’t be his movie. Or maybe he's just realizing that he has nothing left to say after 2012. An Asylum screenplay with an A-list cast. I still can’t believe that I saw Patrick Wilson and Halle Berry reciting that dialogue. (03/02/2022)

In terms of price and performance, Roland Emmerich has already destroyed the planet several times in a much better way and with a nicer humanistic furor. This incel-conspiracy vision is fine as long as it plays by the rules of a disaster film, but then my brain was skipping out on this attempt at lobotomized sci-fi. It should have ended up on Netflix, because I haven't seen such ugly green-screens on the big screen in a long time. Being able to put the laundry in the washing machine and look out the window would only have added to the film. I don’t expect much from Emmerich, but certainly something more fun than Moonfall. (03/02/2022)

This is so heavenly stupid that it's kind of beautiful. This movie is about 60 years late, and that's actually a good thing. I felt like I was watching vintage sci-fi from the 1950s again, only that Roland goes much, much further with the stupidity. In the 1950s, during the Golden Age of science fiction, these pieces were made like Bata's trainers, nothing makes sense to today's viewer, but you still have fun and smile because you can feel the sincere effort to make a good film. Probably like Edward D. Wood Jr. when he was hanging models of flying saucers on string, Roland has the technical side of the craft down pat, but the boys are on the same page in terms of message. Emmerich is a genre on his own. I don’t want to watch it again, but it was a guilty pleasure. (02/04/2022)