Review by Jon Donnis
Seems like forever since I have seen a decent end of the world type film, so I have been looking forward to Moonfall from the moment it was announced.
Co-written, directed, and produced by the King of the disaster movies Roland Emmerich, just having his name attached to this film you know it will be good, but having his name attached to so much of the film, then it needs to be really good.
The film starts in 2011, Astronauts Brian Harper played by the always excellent Patrick Wilson and Jocinda Fowler played by the ageless Halle Berry, (How is she 55?) are on a mission to repair a satellite, Astronauts Harper and Marcus are on a spacewalk when suddenly a strange black swarm attacks their craft, Harper manages to get back into the craft, but Marcus is killed by the swarm. Harper takes control of the craft and gets him and Fowler back to Earth safely.
After an investigation, NASA dismiss Harper's description of what happened, and human error is blamed for the disaster. Harper finds himself out of a job when Fowler fails to back him up in the investigation.
We fast forward 10 years into the future, and we get to meet conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman, played by the brilliant John Bradley. He believes that the moon is a megastructure, created by aliens.
The Houseman character brings the comedy to the film, the lighthearted moments, and he gets all the best lines.
One day after getting time on a research telescope, he discovers that the Moon's orbit is off, and the moon is falling to earth. Of course, no one believes him, he tracks down Harper and tries to convince him, but he too doesn't listen. (Hey people, in the real world reading this right now, conspiracy theorists have been right about so much the past few years, if anything this film is a great lesson to perhaps once in a while listen to them).
NASA also detects the issue with the moon, just as Houseman goes public with his findings. NASA sends a crew to investigate, but just like 10 years earlier, the swarm appears, but this time kills them all.
Now that is as much as I really want to spoil as it really is worth watching.
From this point going forward the film is mainly about the Harper and Fowler characters joining forces with Houseman, and trying to save the world.
This is your typical kind of disaster film, we have seen it before many times, whether it is films with asteroids hurtling to earth, or Tsunamis, Earthquakes, aliens and so on, so the main thrust of the film is nothing original. But it is done so well, and with likeable main characters that you won't really care.
There are the usual subplots of family members on Earth trying to reach higher ground, or bunkers etc, but I really didn't care about any of them, but I did care about the 3 main characters.
It is so hard to have 3 main characters all being really likeable, but Moonfall really pulls it off.
Although the general aspects of the films we have seen before, the specific plot is quite original, and towards the end of the film when you get the big explanation, it is told really well, it is not rushed, and everything basically makes sense.
If you like a good disaster film, you just can't go wrong with Moonfall. For what is an independently produced film, it has a HUGE budget and that really shows.
The Good
Really well-made disaster film, ticks all the boxes that you could ever want in such a film, despite the ridiculous plot.
The Bad
At 2 hours long it felt a little long, and could easily have been cut to 90 minutes without losing any of the character of the film.
Overall
Over the top, ridiculous, silly, and physics be damned. I LOVED IT. Probably my favourite disaster film in years.
I score Moonfall a moon shattering 9/10
At Cinemas Now!
Pre-Order the Home Release at https://amzn.to/3NprGv4
