Director: Roland Emmerich

Writers: Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser, and Spenser Cohen

Starring:  Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Peña, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, Donald Sutherland

Rating: ★★★

Roland Emmerich is back with what he does best, an end of the world disaster film. This time around it’s about the moon spiralling down on a collision course with Earth, knocked out of orbit by unknown extra-terrestrial life. The stakes couldn’t be higher, as a small group of astronauts and scientists try to save the world.

Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), a disgraced astronaut, is approached by a conspiracy theorist, K. C. Houseman (John Bradley) about the moon being out of orbit. Brian doesn’t take it seriously, and K.C. leaks the information online. At the same time Nasa has come to the same conclusion and starts working on ways to stop it, bringing Brian back into the fold as the only astronaut who can complete the mission.

Moonfall is exactly what you think it’s going to be. Ridiculous, loud, explosive, and a lot of fun. It’s perfect popcorn entertainment. The action is exciting, the effects are mind-blowingly good, and it has a decent sense of humour. Is this the type of film that you’re going to be completely emotionally invested in? No. But it is brain dead entertainment at its best. You can switch off and enjoy the pure adrenaline action.

It pushes everything to the limits. The moon is getting closer and closer, with each cycle around the Earth getting shorter. There are moments where cars are jumping using momentary loss of gravity, a rocket that is taken from a museum that manages to get the heroes into space, defying the odds, military who think the only option is to fire nukes, regardless of the fallout. It’s everything you’d want from a film like this.

Essentially there are two main plots, one following Brian, K.C., and Jo Fowler (Halle Berry) as they travel to the moon to stop the collision. While the other plot follow’s Brian’s and Jo’s children as they try to find somewhere safe on Earth. The space side of things is more entertaining and exciting, while the Earth side tries to keep you emotionally invested and keeping the stakes high. This is a really long film for what it is, and while it’s never boring, the Earth side could be cut down a lot. There are a few things, such as their car being robbed at gunpoint and then a chase sequence with people trying to steal oxygen tanks that just don’t need to be there. It’s needless padding while you want to watch the stuff happening in space.

Roland Emmerich obviously knows what he’s doing with disaster films, making some of the greatest of the last few decades and Moonfall is no exception. Visually it’s simply amazing. The effects and CGI are flawless, there’s not one moment where you aren’t completely immersed into it believing this is real.

Moonfall is exactly what you want it to be, pure fun and adrenaline action. It’s too long, like most films of the genre, but it’s still entertaining and enjoyable. Roland Emmerich has done it again.

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