The first reviews of Moonfall are in, and critics are split on whether the film is bad, fun, or somewhere in between. Moonfall, which hits theaters tomorrow, February 4, 2022, is the latest film from director Roland Emmerich, whose blockbuster disaster films have ranged between massive hits and epic flops. He began his disaster movie run with the megahit Will Smith vehicle Independence Day in 1996, going on to direct The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, and White House Down, which were interspersed with films like the much-maligned 1998 Godzilla and the many-years-later sequel Independence Day: Resurgence.
Moonfall seems to be an effort to embrace the schlocky origins of Emmerich's career. It follows two astronauts, played by Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson, who team up with a conspiracy theorist played by John Bradley when the Moon is knocked out of orbit. As they attempt to prevent imminent disaster, they soon learn that the Moon may not be what it seems to be. Although the Moonfall trailer has kept the true secret of the film in the dark, it seems like the crew may have to face an unknown alien threat over the course of their adventure. Moonfall also stars Josh Cruddas, Michael Peña, Donald Sutherland, Eme Ikwuakor, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, and Carolina Bartczak.
The first reviews for Moonfall have arrived, and the critics agree that the movie is silly fluff. However, they seem split on whether or not that means the film is exhausting or fun. Some have even gone so far as to call the film boring, though most have at least admitted it has a sense of energy even if they didn't appreciate it overall. Check out excerpts from selected reviews below:
Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant
The dialogue is clunky and often so silly that the rigidity of the proceedings often doesn’t match. And while the film’s main premise is simple enough, Moonfall is littered with unnecessary exposition that weighs down the action. Emmerich could have used these instances instead to show the audience what’s happening rather than explain them.
William Bibbiani, The Wrap
Absurd as it is, Moonfall represents yet another bold stroke of maximalist grandeur from a filmmaker who excels at making overwhelming chaos look beautiful
Ross Bonaime, Collider
Even compared to Emmerich’s previous apocalyptic action films, Moonfall is more rinky-dink and on a smaller scale than we’ve seen from him. Films like Independence Day and 2012 had a massive scope to them, and even a film like White House Down showed that Emmerich could make an enthralling action film with a smaller focus. Yet Moonfall is the type of film that requires that sort of insane, over-the-top production, and it never quite reaches that point.
Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
Moonfall is stupid, in other words, but I don’t mind admitting that it feels, at this point in time, like my kind of stupidity. Certainly it’s refreshing to see an end-of-the-world movie in which the characters aren’t just cluelessly hashtagging their way to oblivion the way they do in Don’t Look Up, another recent movie about humanity’s impending extinction.
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
Devoid of engaging setpieces, believable characters, or even the slightest hint of self-awareness.... Even worse is the perversity with which Emmerich keeps punting the answers further down the field, as he constantly cuts away from the core trio’s mission to the center of the Moon in order to keep tabs on Michael Peña’s The Last of Us cosplay back on Earth.
Chris Evangelista, SlashFilm
If you were hoping for more world-destroying Independence Day action and little else, you might be a little miffed with the weirder stuff Emmerich is doing here. Then again, you might be completely on board with the junk food theories he's trafficking in. And even if you're not, it's hard not to at least have a little fun with most of Moonfall.
Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
The grim fact of Moonfall is that it’s awfully boring, a lifeless assemblage of confusing CGI and pat characters we barely know. (Compare the opacity of Wilson and Berry’s roles to the vibrancy and texture of Independence Day’s dramatis personae. Or maybe don’t.)
Charle Pulliam-Moore, The Verge
In its final third, Moonfall almost seems to gain a new level of self-awareness about how paltry its internal sense of logic is. But rather than bothering to course correct, Emmerich and co-writers Harald Kloser and Spenser Cohen’s script piles on even more nonsense that doesn’t work as dumb fun because of how hollow and airless the movie is as a whole.
Frank Scheck, THR
By the time the story reaches its out-there conclusion... it’s become clear that the screenwriters have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey too many times. This might all have been palatable if Moonfall generated any real electricity or flair. But Emmerich, who’s previously demonstrated his greater artistic ambitions with such efforts as Anonymous and Stonewall, seems to be going through the motions.
Although there aren't enough reviews on the critic aggregator service Rotten Tomatoes to provide Moonfall with an official score, right now the film is trending between 25% and 33%. While Emmerich has only directed two films that are rated Fresh, this is still bad news for his newest feature. If Moonfall maintains this negative rating, it will be the lowest-received film he has directed since his 2015 LGBTQ+ rights historical drama Stonewall, which was slammed for being historically inaccurate.
Although Moonfall's reviews are less than stellar, it does have a chance to take the weekend. After two January weekends that were completely barren of new major wide-release films, in which Scream and Spider-Man: No Way Home flip-flopped taking the #1 and #2 slots, the major competition here is the arrival of both Moonfall and Jackass Forever. It is likely that one of these two films will lead the weekend, though Jackass is trending extremely positive in its early reviews, so it remains to be seen where audiences will flock.
Source: Various (see above)
