their makeshift work-arounds, mathematical
calculations made on the ly on a whiteboard and
bombastic declarations like “I didn’t come this far
to fail!” and “I want you to have a world you can
grow up in.”
This time, Emmerich has to make the moon — our
placid, ever-spinning pockmarked companion
— into a menace and the ilmmakers deliver: As
it spins closer, the moon’s gravitational pull yanks
up buildings and causes global tsunamis, called
“gravity waves.” Chunks of moon rock shoot down
like artillery ire.
The moon’s hazards only inflame the
personal tensions between our heroes.
Wilson plays an ex-astronaut who is broke,
divorced and estranged from his teenage
son after unfairly being fired by NASA.
Berry’s character worries about her young
son and tries to reason with her ex-husband,
a Defense Department general with an itchy
trigger finger. Both actors are not being
asked to do much work here, but you didn’t
show up for emoting, did you? The great
Donald Sutherland has a really odd five-
minute cameo, by the way.
After a bit of a slow start, “Moonfall” gets
absolutely trippy in the last third as it details a
mind-blowing alternative history to mankind
that spans millennia and distant planets and
backs it all up with gorgeous, massive special
efects. Logic is abandoned altogether but few
will care. “Everything we thought we knew
about the universe has gone out the window,”
someone says helpfully.
While our trio of astronauts are in the
heavens trying to save Earth to stirring