Moonfall

Roland Emmerich isn’t one to mince words when it comes to titling his films. From Stargate to White House Down, what you see on the marquee is typically what you get from the disaster movie director — an M.O. that holds true with Moonfall, which finds Earth’s moon, well, falling toward our planet.

For audiences not yet suffering from apocalypse fatigue with the filmmaker, quality escapism awaits as disgraced astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), his former colleague Jo Fowler (Halle Berry), and conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley, aka Sam from Game of Thrones) team up to save the day.

Rebounding nicely after the consecutive career lows of Independence Day: Resurgence and Midway, Emmerich — along with co-writers Harald Kloser (2012) and Spenser Cohen (Extinction) — generally keeps the film coasting along at the crest of its suspension-disbelieving wave for roughly 90 minutes.

The humor-rich chemistry between the three co-leads and an engaging enough side narrative involving Harper’s son, er, Sonny (Charlie Plummer, Lean on Pete) butting heads with his stepdad Tom (Michael Peña) keep the pace cooking while Earth deals with rapidly rising tides and lunar chunks raining from above.

Navigating the ever-shifting terrain leads to some impressive destruction imagery and supremely implausible yet thrilling effects-heavy action, including one cheer-inducing exhibition of a Lexus’ capabilities that may or may not be in the owner’s manual.

Ticking into that final half hour or so, let’s just say Moonfall makes good on one of KC’s wild claims and then goes all-in with an exposition-heavy backstory, followed by another info-dump stretch as one character relays what they’ve learned to their colleagues.

It’s a ridiculous series of events and worthy of incredulous laughter — and also all but necessary if the filmmakers are going to take the story there, which, to be fair, they’ve done from the start. Anything short of this full, borderline-impressive explanation would leave invested viewers and haters alike wishing for the very information that’s been doled out, and with it, Moonfall cements its status as a silly film with big ideas…the likes of which wouldn’t be unwelcome to see expanded into future adventures.

Grade: B. Rated PG-13. Now playing at Regal Biltmore Grande

(Photo: Reiner Bajo/Lionsgate)