MOONFALL

John Bradley and Halle Berry

MOONFALL (2022). Director: Roland Emmerich. 

When after millions of years the moon begins to fall out of its orbit, there is panic and devastation on earth. The military wants to blast the moon out of existence, but the Acting Director of NASA, Jocina Fowler (Halle Berry), thinks there may be another way of preventing the apocalypse. A genius nerd named KC (John Bradley) theorizes that there is some kind of artificial, alien construct inside the moon, as well as a malevolent and dangerous force. These two, along with disgraced former astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), wind up blasting off for the moon on a daring and desperate mission to save the earth. 

Patrick Wilson 

Let's make it clear that Moonfall is a popcorn or comic book movie and is perfectly okay on that level only. I viewed the film with some trepidation as I feared director Emmerich would go for his usual camp approach, and while the tone is light (considering the events occurring), it never quite descends into absolute silliness. There are even some moving bits of humanism, especially concerning the loved ones of the trio and their tribulations on earth, and the unlikely heroism of KC.  

However, the movie keeps bouncing back and forth from the space mission to the earth cataclysms, causing the viewer to be distracted. It would have been better to get all the perils of Pauline stuff for the folks on earth out of the way so we could concentrate solely on the moon in the film's second half. Whatever the film's flaws, however, it has some excellent special effects, an exciting score, a few genuinely thrilling moments, and is very well-acted by the entire cast. The ever-reliable Patrick Wilson makes a strong leading man and once you get used to an oddly-cast Halle Berry she delivers. John Bradley is the most appealing of the three as the lovable science geek. This is a "feel good" movie which sort of glosses over the hundreds of thousands of deaths that must have occurred.

Verdict: Okay, this is fast and entertaining, unoriginal, nothing major, like a colorful CGI comic book. **3/4.