What do you do when the genre you helped create becomes such a joke that they start making political satires based on it? If you’re Roland Emmerich, the greatest disaster filmmaker ever, you go even harder. Moonfall, a movie about the moon falling to Earth but also about aliens, just dropped its second, official trailer, and it looks like every disaster movie cliche ever wrapped into a shiny package. Honestly, that’s OK.
The film stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, and John Bradley as those “only people on Earth” who can save the planet from impending doom via moon. After discovering that the moon is out of orbit and that it is probably out of orbit because of evil aliens, the trio decides to launch themselves into space in order to save humanity. It looks like they do a pretty piss-poor job as the Moonfall official trailer features massive destruction across all of the planet, but hopefully they can save a few folks here and there. Joining in on the adventure are Michael Peña, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu, Eme Ikwuakor, Carolina Bartczak, Donald Sutherland, and a car that seems to have the ability to fly short distances in order to jump over chasms.
There is literally nothing original about Moonfall according to its official trailer. You’ve got the hotshot outlaw, the one no one believes, the wacky sidekick, and the randomly connected kids all crammed in there spewing lines we’ve heard a million times before. Maybe it’s just the steady downfall of human civilization, but it’s kind of refreshing to see. The film is very, very clearly not trying to be anything more than a one-and-done disaster film full of destruction and CGI. In a world of interconnected cinematic universes, meta-narrative franchises, and overly dramatic blockbusters, it’s kind of nice to see Roland Emmerich just do the thing that he does.
Moonfall will crash into cinemas on February 4, barring COVID delays.
