Roland Emmerich Rehashes His Greatest Hits

The prospect of Moonfall (opening theatrically this weekend courtesy of Lionsgate) being treated as a kind of cinematic manna from heaven by film critics and generalized entertainment nerds is a prime example of how culture has shifted over the last decade or two.

First, obviously, the kids who grew up with Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and/or 2012 are now the adults in the room. Moreover, the shift over the last twenty years toward IP-specific, franchise-friendly, seemingly/arguably homogenized action fantasy films have turned what used to represent the nadir of blockbuster filmmaking (say, a Michael Bay-directed action movie, a high-toned James Bond flick, a Jackass sequel or a Roland Emmerich environmental carnage flick) into near-aspirational cinematic achievements.

That doesn’t mean Moonfall, rated PG-13 for the usual reasons and running an appropriate 130 minutes, is all that good, mind you. It suffers from “shot during Covid” scale issues and often plays like a greatest hits album from Emmerich’s earlier blockbusters.  Penned by Emmerich, Harold Kloser and Spenser Cohen, Moonfall gets off to a spectacular start, with a thrilling outer-space catastrophe which leaves our eventual protagonist (Patrick Wilson) ranting about aliens and being tossed out of NASA in disgrace.

Ten years later, the thing he swears he saw is now seemingly responsible for a change in the moon’s orbit, a change that is skewing with Earth’s climate and sending the moon itself racing toward our world. For reasons that don’t make much sense (the non-spectacle sequences in this $146 million picture feel frustratingly small), the fate of the world rests with the former astronaut, a current NASA big-wig (Halle Berry) and a random conspiracy theorist (John Bradley) who saw the peril before anyone else.

Into space they go, as those still on Earth try to finagle survival as the moon’s fragments cause all manner of destruction.  You’ll get your share of toppled buildings, explosions, waves, crashing vehicles and “intense depictions of very bad weather.” Like Dwayne Johnson’s San Andreas (the last wholly original live-action Hollywood flick to get anywhere near $500 million worldwide), you’re expected to turn off any moral compass or viewer investment in terms of who lives or dies in this orgy of mass death.

More so than even 2012, this film’s set pieces are only emotionally relevant in terms of what happens to our heroes and their loved ones. I missed that film’s macro-debate and moral handwringing courtesy of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Oliver Platt. The film lacks for any compelling supporting characters. Michael Peña does what he can, even as Emmerich clearly has an issue with stepfathers, but no one outside of our heroic trio stands out. The most crowd-pleasing side character is a cat named Fuzz Aldrin.

Moreover, much of Moonfall feels like Emmerich rehashing his earlier successes (or even some not-so-successful biggies). We get divorced dads proving their worth, estranged sons finding (possible) love amid disaster, stepfathers trying to save the day while being disrespected every step of the way, monuments and landmarks being destroyed and a minor supporting Chinese character given nothing interesting to do or say. 

I know Emmerich is capable of better (and certainly bigger) popcorn blockbusters. White House Down is the best Die Hard knock-off this side of Speed and Independence Day still holds up 26 years later. Both films prioritize character and sentiment over spectacle, while supplying plenty of both. While I’m willing to blame Covid for how small and contained Moonfall often feels, the independently funded $146 million movie does occasionally resemble, especially when it’s on Earth and not in space, an Asylum knock-off of 2012. 

Still, the prologue is a whopper, and the mid-film launch sequence amid a gravity wave is a “worth seeing in IMAX or Dolby” showstopper. Once our heroic trio confronts the malevolent forces which have set the moon on a collision course with Earth, Moonfall goes full fantasy freaky. We get some jaw-dropping visuals along with unexpected (and unspoiled-in-the-marketing) plot turns that push it harder into hard sci-fi weirdness. It’s a reminder that the guy who directed 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow first broke out with Universal Soldier and Stargate.

Once upon a time, the Irwin Allen-style disaster movie was initially just a good template by which to structure ID4 rather than the thing for which he intended to become best known. Between Moonfall and Independence Day Resurgence, I wonder if Emmerich is just more interested in the “why” and “how” than the “what” or “who” in terms of disaster iconography.