Written and directed by Roland Emmerich, who also brought us such global-disaster films as Independence Day, Godzilla (1998), The Day After Tomorrow, and 2012, this continues his affinity for taking the planet right to the brink of destruction while also being less concerned or constrained by things being fixed in reality or filling all the plot holes. 

In a nutshell, I’d describe Moonfall as a film meant for people who thought Michael Bay’s 1998 Armageddon was a well-thought-out strategic think piece but just a bit too rooted in science and reality. Or those who enjoyed the spectacle, mayhem, and landscape destruction that is Emmerich’s signature move, à la White House Down or Midway. 

And if your suspension of disbelief isn’t fazed by the proposition of having a couple of days to yank a long retired and decommissioned (and graffiti-laden) Space Shuttle Endeavor out of a museum, somehow trailering it down the highway, loading it onto a plane that ferries it to a launch pad and fully fueling it, mating it with experimental Chinese technology, and then letting two retired astronauts and a conspiracy theorist fly it to the moon to save the planet, well then, you’ll be right at home.

When I first saw the trailer, I thought this was going to be a big-budget self-aware disaster comedy, or something akin to Don’t Look Up. And that it starred Halle Berry—an Oscar winner for Best Actress!—I figured . . . well, I don’t know, that it would be good.

But, no.

I kept waiting for the actors to give some hint that they were in on the joke, kind of like in Airplane!, like it was OK to laugh at some of this ridiculousness, but every line, no matter how absurd, is uttered with 110% over-the-top sincerity. And if the KC Houseman character played by John Bradley (who’ll you’ll likely know as Samwell Tarly from Game of Thrones) reminds you of Josh Gad, it’s probably because Gad was originally cast for the role but had to drop out due to a schedule conflict. 

Fans of cataclysmic disaster films will find much to love here. The moon’s orbit is deteriorating, bringing it into a rapid collision course with the earth, which would obviously make for a very bad day. As the moon—but is it even a moon at all?!?—gets closer, the earth experiences tsunamis, gravitational abnormalities, earthquakes, and radical atmospheric changes, with large chunks of the moon breaking off and pelting the planet. Looting runs rampant, cities are destroyed, mayhem ensues. And when you think it can’t get any crazier, there are hijackings, car chases, and crazy gravity-destroying things all around as the moon draws impossibly closer to the earth. As one character so accurately quips, “This is a whole ‘nother level of insane.” Cue ex-astronaut/current Deputy Director of NASA Jocinda Fowler (Berry) and disgraced former astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson)—who also happened to serve as Fowler’s crew mate a decade before—and Houseman taking the Endeavor to the moon to figure things out before it’s too late. 

Throw in some interpersonal family relationships, self-aware nanobot alien technology, tons of explosions and CGI, numerous references to Elon Musk, and a third act that attempts to explain the origins of life, the universe, and everything (and, no, it isn’t “42”), and you’ve got the 2 hours and 10 minutes that are Moonfall.

If you can get past all that, and just sit back and enjoy the images up on screen and the sound swirling around you, Moonfall is actually a home theater masterpiece. Shot on Redcode Raw at 8K resolution, this transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate, and images look terrific. They’re clean and sharp with many shots having incredible, near three-dimensional depth. Closeups have tons of detail, such as seeing every tooth in a jacket’s zipper or each individual whisker on Donald Sutherland’s face.

One drawback to all these pixels of resolution is that some of the CGI effects can look a bit cheesy. There was a scene where multiple cars were being destroyed by flooding, and I couldn’t tell if I was looking at bad CGI or just a bunch of miniature models being moved around. Also a bit odd, considering this is set in current times, is that many of the computers and TVs are old CRT monitors. 

The HDR grade gives plenty of pop to bright images, such as the gleaming white space suits astronauts wear, the Shuttle’s tiles, or numerous bright lights from flashlights, searchlights, fluorescent overheads, indicator lights inside the shuttle, or sunlight pouring in through windows. An opening shot of the earth has it surrounded by a vibrant blue band of atmosphere; explosions have bright, vibrant red-orange fireballs; and another scene has a cabin lit in golden-orange glows from fire and candlelight. 

I did notice that blacks are more a dark grey in some parts rather than the true, deep black of the letterbox bars. This was apparent in shots in space and also during full screen cuts to “black” that are clearly more deep grey, which is especially noticeable when watching in a light-controlled room on an OLED.

Now, we arrive at the main course: Moonfall‘s Dolby Atmos audio track. It is, how you say, “chef’s kiss.” From the get-go, the sound mixer clearly understood the assignment and pushed his dials to 11. Virtually every scene is packed with some sonic moment that will show off your surround system. 

This movie has nearly every sound element and moment Atmos was created to enhance, and I dare say, if there was ever a film mixed for the full complement of 34 speakers Dolby Atmos supports, it was Moonfall. Sure, it has plenty of those scene-defining moments like traffic and office noise, or sounds off in the distance like shouting, explosions, and sirens, but that’s just the sonic amuse bouche. 

The main course serves up rainfall pattering overhead, multiple helicopters passes around the room and overhead, the echo of voices expanding interior spaces, the boom of announcements overhead, things smashing, crashing and swirling around the room, nano particles that reach out and engulf and surround you, meteorites streaking overhead and plummeting into the objects all around you. 

Oh, yeah—and bass. Plenty of it. Deep, massive, tactile couch-shaking, room-energizing bass. Whether it is the deep rumble of the Shuttle’s rockets, the massive sounds of floodwaters rising up overhead, the crackling of things being destroyed, or the planet being pummeled by chunks of the moon, your subs will get plenty of work. Be aware: This mix is loud and dynamic, so play it back at reference volume level at your own peril!

I found dialogue to be mostly intelligible, but there was one scene during a space launch where there are tons of effects and rumbles and sonic cacophony happening and with -the characters are wearing masks, making some of the lines difficult to understand. But, honestly, I doubt anything they said was really important. 

Ultimately, Moonfall is a big, dumb, high-budget disaster film where tons of stuff is destroyed. But it is perhaps better to think of it not as one of the most expensive independent films ever made but rather as a lengthy Dolby Atmos demo sizzle reel that happens to feature some well-known actors interwoven with a space movie. Taken in that context, it’s a lot of fun.