Moonfall
Lionsgate | Release Date: February 4, 2022 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
41
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 45 Critic Reviews
Positive:
10
Mixed:
19
Negative:
16
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
NMEJames McMahonFeb 10, 2022
The bad news is that Moonfall isn’t a great movie. The good news is that it’s hugely enjoyable for most of its running time. Read full review
77
Paste MagazineAurora AmidonFeb 3, 2022
In a world full of soulless, self-conscious CGI-rampant action flicks and superhero movies that seem like they were made by robots, Emmerich seems to really care about this movie. And that’s a trend I can get behind. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyFeb 3, 2022
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 effects. Logic is abandoned altogether but few will care. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Alison WillmoreFeb 8, 2022
It’s so unapologetically absurd and so very fun. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensFeb 7, 2022
As a lifelong aficionado of sprawling, dopey disaster movies with plenty of character back story—your Poseidon Adventures, your Twisters, your Titanics—and as maybe the world’s biggest fan of Emmerich’s 2012 (2009), I was naturally inclined to enjoy Moonfall, and I did, though maybe with not quite as much glee as I vibed with the fevered conspiracy theories and lovingly preserved world treasures of 2012. Read full review
70
The New YorkerRichard BrodyFeb 7, 2022
The best parts of “Moonfall” feel like a sharp and cogent reproach to the corporate stolidity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and other superhero-franchise movies. The ridiculous proves occasionally sublime. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 3, 2022
Sure, Moonfall is all kinds of stupid, but it’s a heckuva lot funnier than Adam McKay’s all-star satire. I had a blast, and would gladly saddle up for a second viewing. Read full review
70
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiFeb 3, 2022
Absurd as it is, Moonfall represents yet another bold stroke of maximalist grandeur from a filmmaker who excels at making overwhelming chaos look beautiful. Read full review
65
SlashfilmFeb 3, 2022
Let's get real: no one sits down to watch Moonfall for the performances. They want to see destruction, and on that front, Emmerich delivers. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyFeb 3, 2022
There are moments watching it when you can’t help but think of “Don’t Look Up” (comet, moon, whatever). Honestly, though, “Moonfall” is more fun, even if far less substantial and nowhere near as much talent went into making it. Read full review
60
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyFeb 3, 2022
It’s exhausting. It’s exhilarating. And it’s exactly as absurd as you could ever hope it would be. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 3, 2022
Moonfall is stupid, in other words, but I don’t mind admitting that it feels, at this point in time, like my kind of stupidity. Read full review
58
ConsequenceLiz Shannon MillerFeb 3, 2022
It’s not that a great disaster movie can’t be made in two hours or less, it’s that Roland Emmerich doesn’t know how to do it. Read full review
55
The AtlanticDavid SimsFeb 14, 2022
For all its cheesiness, the film is still entertaining—my entire row at the theater had fun cackling at clunky dialogue and absurd lunar lore. If you’re looking for a nice, empty-brained evening at the movies, Moonfall is the ticket to buy right now. Read full review
50
ColliderRoss BonaimeApr 12, 2022
Moonfall, unfortunately, becomes a mixture of Emmerich’s usual clichés that are starting to show their age, a script that only occasionally embraces the insanity of this idea (even though the third act goes all-in on getting mind-numbingly stupid), and a scope that doesn’t do this story justice. Read full review
50
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenFeb 8, 2022
Other than these visual delights, Moonfall isn’t much fun. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 4, 2022
First hour: pretty lousy and not much fun. Second hour: pretty lousy but more fun, and the movie has the benefit of getting stranger and stranger as it gyrates. Read full review
50
CNETRichard TrenholmFeb 4, 2022
Moonfall could be some kind of arch meta-comment on the excesses and artifice of the Hollywood zeitgeist. Or maybe it's just the dumbest movie ever. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 3, 2022
Moonfall is the kind of film that doesn’t take itself seriously and yet really doesn’t have a sense of humor about the ludicrous nature of its very existence. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 3, 2022
The only problem with this movie, a substantial one, is that there’s a major sag in the story about halfway through. For its first hour, Moonfall is a blast. Read full review
50
IGNSiddhant AdlakhaFeb 3, 2022
Moonfall makes its big ideas feel small and unimportant. Read full review
42
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodFeb 3, 2022
It may be bloated, but Moonfall always feels like it’s moving at a somewhat brisk pace. And the filmmaker’s greatest talent is collaborating with visual effects teams to craft images that somehow get seared in your brain. Read full review
40
Little White LiesCharles BramescoFeb 4, 2022
It’s all very stupid, if only sometimes in an amusing way. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredScott CampbellFeb 4, 2022
Moonfall is every bit as big, loud and stupid as you'd expect, but Roland Emmerich's latest disaster epic is also an unforgivably dull slog. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 3, 2022
The film is less like a full-fledged story than a series of notifications you might get on your phone, most of them couched in language that could have been generated by a buggy AI program. Read full review
40
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiFeb 3, 2022
If nothing else, Emmerich certainly knows how to create catastrophe while providing a sense of hope despite everything. Does that save Moonfall from being messy? No, but surely some will find it enjoyable regardless. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonFeb 3, 2022
Although Moonfall is packed with such giddy good cheer that its abundant narrative cliches and dismal dialogue are almost part of the charm, even game performances from Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson aren’t enough to save the day. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 3, 2022
The film sounds actively embarrassed by what it’s trying to pitch, and reverse-engineers its sci-fi elements to fit the default disaster template Emmerich could apply in his sleep. We’re promised the Moon, but sold a lemon. Read full review
40
EmpireJohn NugentFeb 3, 2022
Moonfall is precisely what you’d expect a film called Moonfall to be: deeply, defiantly, sometimes exasperatingly daft. It’s Roland Emmerich on apocalypse-autopilot. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comNick AllenFeb 4, 2022
Co-written with Harald Kloser and Spencer Cohen, “Moonfall” is a lumbering, long locomotive of one cliche attached to another, making time pass slowly even though there is so much juggling of these different one-dimensional relationships. Read full review
33
Entertainment WeeklyJoshua RothkopfFeb 6, 2022
Mostly, though, as TV newscasters inform us, civilization has taken a serious nosedive — definitely the case when a well-financed Emmerich disaster flick can't even get its dumb-fun groove on. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloFeb 3, 2022
The film’s more or less a mashup of Emmerich’s two wheelhouses: alien contact (Stargate, Independence Day) and cataclysmic disasters (The Day After Tomorrow, 2012), with some Armageddon thrown in for good measure. You will actually hear your brain cells commit seppuku as you watch it. Read full review
30
PolygonJoshua RiveraFeb 3, 2022
This film could have literally given us the Moon. Instead, it offers the world’s noisiest lullaby. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleFeb 3, 2022
Moonfall is bad – the wrong kind of bad – because everything in this formula fails to hold up its end of the bargain. The effects are muddled; the supporting cast is terrible. The only thing Moonfall delivers on is the big ideas, but by the time the movie begins to layer in the sci-fi absurdity, the film is already three-quarters of the way home. Read full review
30
CNNBrian LowryFeb 3, 2022
While some might find it possible to have fun by surrendering to the silliness, this bad moon doesn't quite rise even to the level of a guilty pleasure. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckFeb 3, 2022
Featuring many of the same grandiose elements as those predecessors, Moonfall looks and sounds like a would-be cinematic blockbuster but comes up painfully short in its ham-fisted execution. Read full review
30
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergFeb 3, 2022
This off-world adventure flirts with the transcendently goofy, but Emmerich spoils it by crosscutting to a useless narrative thread on Earth. Read full review
25
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenFeb 8, 2022
As terrible as it is — and make no mistake, Moonfall is epically awful — it is also undeniably entertaining. A guilty pleasure, if you will. See it on the biggest screen you can. It’s a, er, riot. Read full review
25
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiFeb 3, 2022
On paper, “Moonfall” has all the hallmarks of an Emmerich blockbuster — natural disasters, parents separated from children, the total annihilation of Manhattan — but with a twist so baffling, you pinch your arm to make sure you are really awake. No need to reach for your dream journal — it’s all painfully real. Read full review
25
IndieWireDavid EhrlichFeb 3, 2022
A blockbuster as big and hollow as the Moon itself; one small step for bland, one giant leap for bland-kind. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 3, 2022
There’s barely a hint of fun and nary a drop of pathos in any of this. Read full review
20
Rolling StoneDavid FearFeb 3, 2022
Recommending that someone actually subject themselves to Roland Emmerich’s sci-fi neo-disaster flick, however, is a little like shoving three-month old milk under an unsuspecting person’s nose and inquiring, Does this smell ok? You already know the answer; you just need to share the pain. Read full review
20
Vanity FairRichard LawsonFeb 3, 2022
Moonfall is all cobbled together financing and bad green screen, simulated locations weakly standing in for the real thing and a host of capable but wasted actors. What an accidental irony, that Moonfall should, after all that, prove so weightless. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 3, 2022
Here the formulaic silliness, sometimes part of the enjoyment, is just tiring. Read full review
0
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 3, 2022
There’s nothing worthwhile here; the landscape of wretched banality offers only wasted time and a sense of despair. Read full review
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