Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		5.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Moonfall Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 19, 2022

Roland Emmerich has built a career out of science fiction tinged blockbusters, though productions like The Patriot and/or Midway are notable exceptions in terms of any perceived sci-fi element, even if they like almost all Emmerich outings go for epic scale. For purposes of this review, though, it may be salient to start with Emmerich's 2009 opus, kind of hilariously called 2012, a film whose chronologically malaprop title may have subliminally recalled another science fiction film with a "yearly" title, namely 2001: A Space Odyssey. And it's actually that Stanley Kubrick masterpiece that can provide some interesting comparison points to Moonfall, though Emmerich fans may not like how their favored auteur may make out in the process. Has there ever been a more laconic film in any genre than Kubrick's massive 1968 ode to "evolution"? Just think about it for a moment: aside from some very brief expository dialogue relatively early in the film, Kubrick and screenwriter Arthur C. Clarke are almost willfully unhelpful in providing context or really even much actual information in the traditional sense, preferring instead to let the film play out in a series of sometimes baffling vignettes. What is the monolith the ancient primates "meet"? Why is it then on the Moon millennia later, or is that another one of the same general device? What does any of all of that have to do with a space mission to furthest reaches of our solar system, and what exactly is going on with Dave once he gets there? And let's not even start with the fetal "Star Child" that caps the film. Now of course there is a story to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a rather brilliant one at that, but the film itself is an object lesson in letting an audience come to its own realizations about things, rather than having them spelled out in minute detail every step of the way.

Much like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Moonfall is concerned with "evolution", at least in its broadest sense, and the moon is once again at the center of it all. However (and minor spoiler alert here, though the film's key art pretty much lets the veritable [Schrodinger's?] cat out of the bag), instead of a monolith buried deep in the moon dust, it's the moon itself that is a piece of ancient alien technology, one that may be in need of either some serious antivirus software or at least a major reboot. But before we get to that series of plot developments, and because Emmerich and his co-writing team of Harold Kloser and Spenser Cohen want to pretend that they're after some actual honest human emotion rather than simply a parade of mind blowing visual effects, there's a whole litany of personal relationships that have to be "explored".

That begins with astronauts Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) and Jocinda Fowler (Halle Berry), who are seen in the film's opening vignette supposedly fixing a satellite in orbit above Earth in 2011, since they evidently do not know the Apocalypse is coming in a mere year, at least in the Word according to Emmerich. And actually in a way the Apocalypse does come, with a weird snakelike aggregation of black globules that attacks Brian on his spacewalk and leaves a veritable red shirt spinning off into space like, well, a certain Frank Poole in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The upshot of the situation is that Harper is disgraced when Fowler doesn't affirm his assessment that there's some kind of unknown destructive force at work in the universe, and there's a resultant whole dysfunctional family dynamic involving his ex-wife Brenda (Carolina Bartczak) and their son with the creative name Sonny (Charlie Plummer). Things aren't much happier in the Fowler camp, with her ex- husband, a general named Davidson (Eme Ikwuakor), filling up subplot material with supposed emotional underpinning. Fowler at least still has a career at NASA, on the plus side.

Meanwhile, a conspiracy theorist named K.C. Houseman (John Bradley), is absolutely convinced that the moon is both alien tech called a "megastructure" and is seriously malfunctioning, leading to orbital chaos. Suffice it to say that at least some of Houseman's theories turn out to be experientially true and in fact (is a spoiler warning necessary for a plot point so aggressively advertised by the film's glut of marketing?) actually all of his theories are eventually confirmed, though only after a seemingly endless slog through supposed history involving moon shots and ostensible discoveries made during them, as outlined by the almost inherently sinister Donald Sutherland in a glorified cameo as an ex-NASA officer.

Now all of this character information is probably relatively well and good, if awfully labored at times, but in one of the supplements on the disc frequent Emmerich cohort Harald Kloser overtly mentions that a number of his collaborations with Emmerich have started with one solitary idea and/or image, and in this case it was the concept or actual illustration of the moon crashing into the earth and what that would look like and what catastrophes it would engender that sparked the film. And, let's just face it, that is the underlying purpose of Moonfall. All of this said, it may be salient to point out how differently Emmerich and Kubrick approached what is in essence a tale of Mankind "coming of age" and finding out a bit both about its provenance and perhaps its future. Kubrick, as mentioned above, presents an ultimately understandable narrative with a minimum of expository fuss and bother.

Emmerich, on the other hand, pauses on more than one occasion for what might charitably be called Moishe the Explainer in Outer Space information dumps. One of these, offered by the Moon itself (more or less, anyway) seems to fly in the face of logic, at least logic as defined by Arthur C. Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Part of that film's subtext is that whomever was responsible for all those rectangular monoliths was smart enough to bury one on the moon, knowing that its discovery would inherently be possible only after Mankind had developed to a certain stage. In Moonfall, one has to assume a whole series of improbable events involving everything from nefarious artificial intelligence to humans "breaking into" the Moon in order for the whole "explanation" by the Moon to even begin to make sense, and it frankly may not even then.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf was evidently even less enthusiastic about Moonfall than I am. You can read Brian's thoughts here.

Moonfall Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Moonfall is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Captured with Red cameras (at source resolutions up to 8K, according to the IMDb), and then finished at 4K, this is generally stunning looking presentation, although fans of Emmerich may feel that some of the destruction scenes look pretty familiar. Despite a prevalence of rather dark, and often blue tinted, sequences, detail levels are engaging high for the most part, and only the briefest flirtations with crush can intrude in the very darkest moments. CGI is rather believable for the most part, though I found some of the wide shots of devastation in particular to have more of a cartoonish ambience on occasion. Fine detail on everything from costume fabrics to facial pores is typically superb. The palette is nicely suffused and some wrap up material featuring stark white backgrounds really pops incredibly well.

Moonfall Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Moonfall features an admirably robust Atmos track that features consistent engagement and announces both its low end forcefulness and some of its higher aspirations (so to speak) from the get go, with big rumbling LFE combined with wafting airier effects in the opening scenes. "Little" moments like archival audio of "the Eagle has landed" then echo from front to back really invitingly, letting the listener know that some expert sound design is literally in the mix. While the film has its share of probably too convoluted "talky bits", once the actual devastation and destruction start setting in, the surround channels are regularly engaged and there are some almost tornado like effects as the destructive artificial intelligence snakes through the universe on its mission to eradicate little old humankind. Dynamic range is very wide throughout this presentation, and dialogue, effects and score are all rendered flawlessly. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are available.

Moonfall Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Director / Writer Roland Emmerich and Writer / Producer / Composer Harald Kloser


• Against Impossible Odds: Making Moonfall (HD; 58:40) is a very well done aggregations of featurettes that gets into the genesis of the project and the actual production.


• Exploring the Moon: Past, Present and Future (HD; 26:29) has the perceived imprimatur of real authority courtesy of several interesting interviews with NASA types.


• Dr. K.C. Houseman Speaks the Truth! (HD; 7:49) offers a quartet of whimsical supposed YouTube-ish posts by Houseman, espousing his "crazy" theories. This comes with the helpful warning that it's fictitious.

Moonfall Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My hunch is those who love the kind of big, showy entertainments that Roland Emmerich is so skilled in crafting aren't going to care one whit about any perceived deficits in plotting or characterization. And as a cinematic "carnival ride" of sorts, while the destruction of the Earth is once again depicted in all its glory (?) in an Emmerich film, the whole "Moon as megastructure" aspect gives this at least a little bit of an innovative quality. Technical merits are solid, and the supplements quite engaging, for those who may be considering making a purchase.