Fix: You Love Disaster Movies, So Much So You Willingly Watch This Movie Even Now Knowing How Terribly Bad It Is, You Like To Mock Horrible Movies, You’re Bored And Need A Drinking Game
Platform: HBOMax
HBOMax Summary:
A mysterious force knocks the moon from its orbit and sends it hurtling on a collision course toward earth.
FYA Summary:
You remember Independence Day? Yeah, somehow this movie was written and directed by that same director. I mean, I suppose it can’t be a total shock, because—look, I love it, but let’s be real: Independence Day was uber cheesy, but it was cheesy in a great way. But THIS movie is the Kraft singles processed “cheese product” of disaster movies: vaguely cheese-shaped, but it doesn’t melt the same and you’re probably one step closer to chemical poisoning after eating it.
Oh, where to begin, where to begin? Astronaut Harper Patrick Wilson has been fired from space after he vehemently sticks to his story that some Smoke Monster giant sentient cloud of black space material is the reason one of his fellow astronaut friends dies on a routine space mission. Astronaut Fowler Halle Berry, his work wife, leaves him out to dry and continues on to a vaguely important NASA job.
Ten years into the future (our present), a conspiracy theorist named KC Houseman Sam Tarly tweets out that the moon has been knocked off its orbit and is circling closer and closer to the Earth, where it will break apart, crash, and kill us all in about 12 days. Oh, and he posits the moon’s a superstructure made by aliens. This will be important later…because of course it is. LOL.
What ensues over the next TWO FREAKING HOURS is nothing short of utter hilarity. I’m pretty certain the writing team was on laughing gas while writing. What’s even more bizarre? The director believed in this movie so much he funded most of it himself to the tune of $150 million. (It only earned ~$50 million worldwide.) He also had ideas for two sequels. I’ll just be waiting over here for a chunk of the moon to asteroid me away before I subject my eyeballs to that, thankyouverymuch.
Familiar Faces:
Halle looked like she was physically in pain having to shoot this movie. Her face ranged from stoic bravery in the face of such agony to some truly excellent smell-the-fart acting as she wondered why the script she was holding stunk so badly. At one point she admonishes the NASA liaison to the President (or something) that he just *gasp* lied to the American public and that she defends the truth and won’t stand for it. Reader, I laughed and laughed and laughed.
Patrick Wilson as Brian Harper
I’m pretty sure Roland Emmerich had hoped to cast everyone’s least favorite Chris and he was busy making that other god-awful action movie about time wars and aliens, so his directorial notes to Patrick were simply to act like he thought Chris Pratt would act in this role. Of course only Brian Harper would be brave and manly and clever enough to pilot a space shuttle with only two working engines.
I want better things for you, Sam Tarly, than playing Jennifer Lopez’s overworked manager and the bumbling space fool who almost drowns himself because he can’t swim while deliberately watching a wave of water come at him when everyone else gets out the way, OR going on about his IBS when he’s told he can fulfill his lifelong dream of going to space to save the world.
Of course everyone is miserable in our main cast and has an ex or has remarried a tool who owns a car dealership, and that tool’s name is Tom. Michael is one of those faces where I’m like, “Hey, it’s you,” but I don’t remember his name right away, and he does what he can with this paper-thin caricature of a douchy step-dad to Patrick Wilson’s delinquent teenager.
Couch-Sharing Capability: Depends; Do You Like Torturing Others?
Before I knew HOW BAD it was going to get, I was going to watch this movie alone. Then fifteen minutes in, my husband comes home and wants me to start it over. I already had an inkling by then that we were on a long, slow descent into mediocrity, but LITTLE DID I KNOW it would soon be the slickest slip-n-slide straight to hell. We finished out of sheer, perverse curiosity, because sometimes we like to flirt with sadomasochism. (Sorry you now know too much about my marriage.)
Recommended Level of Inebriation: Drink It All
I can’t even make you a drinking game because a) I don’t want to encourage you to watch this movie; this is a PSA warning post that if you were thinking about it, JUST STOP, and b) that would mean I need to reflect on my memories of this movie, and if I do I may cry. But if this somehow manages to fumble its way onto your television screen, just…drink.
Use of Your Streaming Subscription: I Pulled A Moonfall
In Friends, Monica’s harpy mother used to traumatize her by saying the phrase she “pulled a Monica” whenever she did something “wrong”. So I’m creating my own alternate phrase to “I fucked up”.
This movie is truly terrible. And although he’s been in many a thing, my favorite Michael Peña role is Luis in the Ant-Man movies. (Because he is The Best storyteller.)
Yes, he’s great in that movie! He’s even fine in this, but everything gets dragged down by this movie’s mere existence, lol.