Director: Roland Emmerich

Story By: Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser, & Spenser Cohen

Cast: Halle Berry, John Bradley, Patrick Wilson, Charlie Plummer, Michael Peña, & Carolina Bartczak

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Well. This was such a smorgasbord of a story and movie experience…

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Below are my grades for key components in #Moonfall that I find to be key in any story/film—Theme, Plot, Pacing, and Character (pertaining to arc/development &/or delivery). FYI: My A=95, A- =90, B=85, B-=80…etc. My D- =60 and my F=50

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Theme: C

Plot & Story: C

Pacing: C

Character: D

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Entertainment Factors

General Public: Don’t Watch

Film Enthusiasts: Don’t Watch

Experience Seekers (via Visuals & Score): Wait for Streaming 

Sci-Fi/Disaster Film Fans: Interesting Enough

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TAKEAWAYS:

1. When a denounced and made-insane astronaut crosses paths with a moon and outer-space geek regarding an aggressive and unusual entity in space impacting the moon’s stability, they are called to go on a mission with an astronaut from the denounced’s past to try and save the world. This is Moonfall. 

Act Three is the part of the film where I sat back and saw the potential that could’ve been with its 2 hour runtime. Unfortunately, it felt like 3 isolated story mash-ups which got in the way of Moonfall really being “out of this world.” 

Act One felt extremely choppy in its attempt to set the premise for the story, give meaning and purpose to the characters, and establish the tone for the film (was it a drama, comedy, satire…). 

Act Two was pretty safe. By the time I got through Act One, I just saw Act Two as a simple movement of the plot with focus on the visuals. 

But it was Act Three where I appreciated the creative risk in regards to the moon, but it just seemed like there was a little writing greed to try and include every interesting sci-fi twist and theory possible. 🥴🤷🏾‍♂️

2. I really couldn’t take Doug’s face. The squinting just made it look like he was always trying not to laugh and break character. 🤦🏾‍♂️🥴😅

3. OMG the disaster and space/moon visuals were really amazing! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾🙌🏾

4. With a runtime of 2hrs, the pro is that the film moves well to get to the action and disaster visuals. Where it lacked in story, it at least tried to make up with engagement. I also found the pacing to do a good job with attempting to mimic the feeling of alarm and disbelief of everyone in the situation. 

BUT…that’s also the con of the pacing—it moved too fast for story and character development, for me. 🤦🏾‍♂️

5. The messaging direction seemed to be simple, thematic starters like “heroism,” “sacrifice,” and “purpose” that we were able to recognize via key characters like Fowler, Harper, Sonny, a little bit with Tom, and I think more intentionally with KC (although the film would like one to believe it was Harper). 

The problem for me is that due to the pacing, there was a lack of character development which didn’t allow these themes to have any real depth to them. It felt a little elementary. 🤦🏾‍♂️

6. I liked KC’s character, as I think was the point, but the storyline really did him a disservice. 🤷🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️

7. Y’all know I feel about child actors… Jimmy seemed so calmly flat in a story situation that should’ve had him in such a mess. It was a no for me no matter how adorable he was.🤦🏾‍♂️

8. Chile, not BANDITS! What in the Last of Us… 😂😂😂😩🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️

9. They really wanted that origin story in there SO bad…as much as Act Three was interesting, it was also so damn forced and stupid too. 🤦🏾‍♂️

10. The biggest disappointment to me was the character development and arc. Everything felt forced for the sake of moving the plot and adding some extra tension as if seeing the disaster of the world wasn’t enough. I would cringe just a little every time a character would have a sentimental moment with another because it felt so random and disingenuous. One that stands out the most is the scene between Tom and Sonny in Aspen—I never knew there was any tension between them, so where did that conversation come from? 

And don’t even get me on the relationship and teen trajectory of Sonny and Harper…Chile, WHAT!?🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️👎🏾👎🏾

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Overall #Moonfall gives 2012 meets – Don’t Look Up meets – The Day After Tomorrow  meets – iRobot – meets Arrival – meets A Wrinkle In Time – meets Eternals – meets the Druun from Raya and the Last Dragon.

Before I say anything about the film, I think shout out and praise goes to Lexus. LOL LOL 

Anyway…

Honestly, the film was a pretty sloppily written story with its saving grace being the disaster and space visuals. There just seemed to be a lot creative greed with this story vs picking 2 solid foundations to ride with. 

Additionally, I think this would’ve been a really nice paced out trilogy with this first film being solely on character investment with hints of this future disaster throughout because it was a really rough attempt at trying to give story and meaning to characters while also giving this stunning and engaging visual of humanity and space colliding. I could’ve seen this as a one year trilogy where all three parts are released before December to maintain audience engagement an interest in how everything wraps up (especially if the first film is focused primarily on foreshadowing and characters).