Is Moonfall actually a parody or is it for real? 

Apparently the film Moonfall did actually release to theaters back in February of this year in one of the biggest flops of 2022 (which is saying a lot as theaters continue to try and rebound) making only $19 million against a budget of $140 million.

Since then it’s been lingering on streaming for “cinema” rental or purchase and now finally can be simply rented on Amazon Prime or Red Box and other rental streaming platforms. 

Starring Halle Berry and boasting the iconic writer and director, Ronald Emmerich, known for space and alien based dystopias such as Independence Day the 1998 Godzilla and Stargate, Moonfall seemed to have a lot of potential to be a fun and exciting rebirth of a beloved space action genre. 

It was not that. The film was so badly conceived and executed that critics remain divided on whether or not it was intentionally parody or accidentally so bad it was fun again. 

For my part, I will take the director at his word that the film was not intended to be hilarious. With this in mind the Conservative Critic will ask: Is it entertaining? Does it have artistic/intellectual value? And is it liberal propaganda? 

Conservative Critic Meter Check: Moonfall 

Overall Rating: So bad they might have been kidding

Despite boasting a star studded cast including Academy Award winner, Halle Berry (Monsters Ball) and Golden Globe winner, Dondald Sutherland (The Hunger Games) and boasting a budget of $140 million with a writer and director who built his career on the film’s genre, Moonfall was a disaster only salvaged by being so great a disaster it was funny. 

The story builds around a standing conspiracy theory that the moon isn’t organically made but actually a mechanical satellite built by either the government, aliens or other entities. It, in the most convoluted and indirect way possible, follows two astronauts and a conspiracy theorist who are forced to save the world after it turns out the moon is a mechanical gyroscope operated by artificial intelligence and headed toward earth. There are also so many other characters and subplots going on that I couldn’t possible explain or fit them all but you have a teen prisoner, you have stepson and stepdad relational failures, you have ex-wives and husbands you have a nanny, you have a journey to colorado and oxygen shortage and grizzled old scientist who suddenly appears, you have it all. 

Instead of playing like a high priced blockbuster space action adventure it played like a made-for-tv ScyFy channel special akin to the Sharknado series. It was Sharknado but the moon.

Is it entertaining? 

Rating: Absurd to the point it’s fun again 

It starts a little slow as viewers are likely trying to take the movie seriously at first. But as it grows and becomes increasingly more confusing, corny and absurd, it becomes pretty fun and funny. Characters appear with no explanation and no backstory. Plot lines erupt seemingly out of nowhere. In the middle of the film, for reasons never explained, a family is thrown into the middle of a violent car chase including gun fire and jumping the car across a ravine. There are space robots, there are governmental cover-ups, there are hold-ups. The movie really takes a bizarre trip across a roller coaster of confusion and makes for a hilarious and fun parody of itself. 

Does it have artistic/intellectual value? 

Rating: LOL No

There was nothing meritorious about the film. The plot makes so little sense that at the end of the movie there are three different five minute monologues explaining what is going on. The actors clearly became aware of how bad the situation was and started phoning it in. Even though it was extremely expensive and some of the graphics are fantastic, others are sort of bizarrely old school. Even the idea of the movie, to me, isn’t a very good one. It’s truly the definition of bad. 

Is it liberal propaganda? 

Rating: I think none??? Unclear.

It’s so convoluted and insane that it’s possible there was a liberal message buried in all the chaos. I didn’t detect a central political ideology or subthread but I barely could detect the central storyline. So it’s very unclear.