Patrick looks at his watch. Jamie had been gambling for three hours and Patrick’s patience was wearing thin. Maybe they really did just need to straighten out Young Jamie and Patrick and head on back to the time machine. Jamie asks for more money and Patrick refuses. He was already down $350 and he wasn’t about to lose more. “Aw come on,” Jamie insists, “the dealer is palming cards and I think I can prove it if I just get a couple more chances.” Still Patrick shakes his head and starts to pull Jamie to the exit. “Fine,” Jamie yells, yanking his sleeve from Patrick’s grasp, “I’ll just have to pound some dweebs.” Oh boy, Jamie’s got a glint in his eye and is looking like he’s about to Walk Tall all over this underground casino. But before he can get his Walking Tall on (hard) a tall, handsome-as-all-heck man in a tuxedo intercepts him. “Hey, good chap, how about we place a wager between us and let everyone enjoy themselves.” Jamie tries to shrug him off, but the man doesn’t budge. “Double fine,” Jamie spits out, staring daggers at all the people who narrowly missed a Walking Tall barrage all over their faces. They sit down at a nearby table. The man orders a tea (stirred, not shaken) and introduces himself. “The name’s LePumice, Donovan LePumice. The game’s Hearts. The wager is your lives, Bad Movie Twins.” Jamie and Patrick gasp in surprise. Guess they aren’t the only ones time traveling lately and no wonder, trouble has followed them ever since they obtained the Dongle. A crowd gathers as Jamie shuffles. “I just want to let you know before we start,” Donovan LePumice says sauvly, “I’m going to shoot the moon and then I’m going to shoot you.” That’s right! BMT Live! The movies are back, Jack, and we waited with bated breath to see if Moonfall would get into BMT range. It was like a will-they-won’t-they sitcom of the 90’s as the sexual chemistry between Moonfall and BMT was palpable (almost pornagraphic) and fortunately we were able to give the people what they wanted as it dropped below 40%. We snatched up the opportunity with gusto. Let’s go!
Moonfall (2022) – BMeTric: 38.9; Notability: 28
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 1.2%; Notability: top 0.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 31.2%; Higher BMeT: Brazen, The 355, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild; Lower RT: Blacklight, Brazen, Alice, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, The 355; Notes: Kind of cool to see what is happening this early into the year. Also just consider that Notability isn’t really accurate within two or so years of a film coming out, that number will double I think. Would be interesting to try and find out (using wikipedia historical records), but difficult.
RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – Roland Emmerich destroys the world again with “Moonfall,” but this time his heart just isn’t in it. The German nihilist blockbuster filmmaker, who has rarely met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like, has become the “master of disaster” with films like “Independence Day,” and his own global warming epic, “The Day After Tomorrow.” But while his film “2012” in particular was overwhelming in its passion for turning mass death into a roller coaster thrill ride with two kids in the backseat, here is “Moonfall,” which proves a boring apocalypse movie is worse than one fixated on how we are all doomed.
(This is kind of a mishmash review, but it is as bad as I expected. The film is getting surprisingly okay reviews (more on that later), so seeing a definitive “this sucks” review is at least refreshing.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivIwdQBlS10/
(Leans right into the years long trend of covering classic songs into stylized versions for trailers. Honest opinion? Bad Moon Rising has never sounded worse, but this trailer makes the movie seem more fun than it apparently is.)
Directors – Roland Emmerich – ( Known For: Independence Day; Midway; Stargate; The Day After Tomorrow; The Patriot; White House Down; Anonymous; Stonewall; Moon 44; Making Contact; The Noah’s Ark Principle; Ghost Chase; BMT: Moonfall; 2012; Independence Day: Resurgence; Godzilla; 10,000 BC; Universal Soldier; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Independence Day: Resurgence in 2017; Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Godzilla in 1999; and Nominee for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million for Independence Day in 1997; Notes: Wrote and Directed Stargate which is being remade with him writing and directing again. I wonder how many times a writer go to remake his own film.)
Writers – Roland Emmerich – ( Known For: Independence Day; Stargate; The Day After Tomorrow; Moon 44; Making Contact; The Noah’s Ark Principle; Ghost Chase; BMT: Moonfall; 2012; Independence Day: Resurgence; Godzilla; 10,000 BC; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Independence Day: Resurgence in 2017; Nominee for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Godzilla in 1999; and Nominee for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million for Independence Day in 1997; Notes: Apparently got into movies after watching the original Star Wars film in Germany in the late 70s.)
Harald Kloser – ( BMT: Moonfall; 2012; 10,000 BC; Notes: Primarily a composer. All of the films he has written were also written and directed by Emmerich.)
Spenser Cohen – ( Known For: Extinction; BMT: Moonfall; Notes: Is credited as a writer on the upcoming Expendables 4 which surely won’t be a shoe-in BMT classic …)
Actors – Halle Berry – ( Known For: Kingsman: The Golden Circle; Cloud Atlas; X-Men; John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum; X-Men: Days of Future Past; X-Men: The Last Stand; Bruised; Die Another Day; Monster’s Ball; X2: X-Men United; Executive Decision; The Last Boy Scout; Robots; The Call; Boomerang; Jungle Fever; The Program; Kings; Bulworth; Dark Tide; Future BMT: The Flintstones; Gothika; Kidnap; B*A*P*S; Strictly Business; Father Hood; The Rich Man’s Wife; Race the Sun; BMT: Moonfall; Movie 43; Swordfish; New Year’s Eve; Catwoman; Perfect Stranger; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actress for Catwoman in 2005; Nominee for Worst Actress in 2014 for Movie 43, and The Call; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple for Catwoman in 2005; Notes: Famously won an Oscar for Monster’s Ball, but also won an Emmy for Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Won the Miss Teen All-American Pageant in 1985.)
Patrick Wilson – ( Known For: Watchmen; Aquaman; Midway; Prometheus; The Conjuring; The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It; Insidious; The Assistant; Bone Tomahawk; The Founder; Little Children; Annabelle Comes Home; The Conjuring 2; The A-Team; The Switch; A Kind of Murder; Hard Candy; The Commuter; In the Tall Grass; Young Adult; Future BMT: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; The Phantom of the Opera; Insidious: The Last Key; Insidious: Chapter 2; The Alamo; BMT: Moonfall; The Nun; Evening; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for Angels in America. Started mostly in theater where he was nominated for two Tony awards.)
John Bradley – ( Known For: Marry Me; Anna Karenina; Man Up; American Satan; Patient Zero; Future BMT: The Brothers Grimsby; BMT: Moonfall; Notes: Apparently is a stand up comedian and drummer in addition to (most famously) appearing in Game of Thrones. He’s going to be in the upcoming Three-Body Problem television series.)
Budget/Gross – $138–146 million / Domestic: $11,909,256 (Worldwide: $15,862,113)
(This is obviously incomplete, but, no joke, this is one of the biggest bombs in history. It is up there with things like Mars Needs Moms apparently as far as getting a $10 million opening weekend on a $150+ budget.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 38% (66/172): Whether Moonfall is so bad it’s good or simply bad will depend on your tolerance for B-movie cheese — but either way, this is an Emmerich disaster thriller through and through.
(The actual percentage was 39.8% and then switched to 39.6% when I originally generated this … this is how fine this is. But hey, it qualified on Thursday. This is Bad Movie Thursday. It was a bad movie on Thursday. That’s all we needed to hear. Rules rules rules. Nice to see it going down though.)
Reviewer Highlight: You’re going for the CGI destruction anyway, and even on those rubbly grounds, Moonfall is a disappointment, flitting by its destroyed vistas with a weird impatience. – Joshua Rothkopf, Entertainment Weekly
Poster – Dumbo Moon Movie
(Uhhh, what is this depicting? I assume the sphere is the moon… surrounded by clouds? And then astronauts floating in… space or maybe on earth? This really is like one of those taglines where I say it only looks like a tagline. This looks like a poster, but I assure you it is not. Still fun font and somewhat aesthetically pleasing. C-.)
Tagline(s) – In 2022, Humanity will face the dark side of the Moon. (B+)
(Yes, please. Thank you. I mean that is a double entendre for the ages my friends. I wish it was a little less clunky and long, but boy does that hit me where it hurts. But I always knew that exploring the extremities of tagline pleasure would be like hooks in my flesh tearing me apart.)
Keyword(s) – astronaut
Top 10: Moonfall (2022), The Suicide Squad (2021), Interstellar (2014), F9: The Fast Saga (2021), Watchmen (2009), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Hidden Figures (2016), The Martian (2015), Oblivion (2013)
Future BMT: 66.8 Thunderbirds (2004), 61.0 Space Chimps (2008), 58.9 Apollo 18 (2011), 56.6 Land of the Lost (2009), 52.1 Green Lantern (2011), 44.9 Fantastic Four (2005), 44.7 Fly Me to the Moon 3D (2007), 42.9 Mission to Mars (2000), 42.2 Red Planet (2000), 32.1 Planet 51 (2009)
BMT: Moonfall (2022), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Armageddon (1998), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Event Horizon (1997), Geostorm (2017), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), The Space Between Us (2017), Species II (1998), Virus (1999), The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Escape from Planet Earth (2012)
Matches: Moonfall (2022), Interstellar (2014), The Martian (2015), Ad Astra (2019), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Gravity (2013), Lucy in the Sky (2019), Apollo 13 (1995), Event Horizon (1997), Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005), Sunshine (2007), Moon (2009), Fantastic Four (2005), Deep Impact (1998), Stowaway (2021), First Man (2018), The Midnight Sky (2020), Planet of the Apes (2001), Terms of Endearment (1983), The Right Stuff (1983), Space Cowboys (2000), The Space Between Us (2017), SpaceCamp (1986), Red Planet (2000), Europa Report (2013), The Fantastic Four (1994), Species II (1998), 3022 (2019), Planet 51 (2009), Thunderbirds (2004), Apollo 18 (2011), Beyond the Stars (1989), The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Escape from Planet Earth (2012), 400 Days (2015), Space Chimps (2008), The Astronaut Farmer (2006), Hangar 18 (1980), Approaching the Unknown (2016), Moontrap (1988), Capture the Flag (2015), Love (2011), The Aftermath (1982), Magellan (2017), Solar Crisis (1990), Space Warriors (2013), Dark Breed (1996), Inhumanwich! (2016), The Last Astronaut (2019), One Under the Sun (2017), 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (2004), The Astronot (2018), Another Plan from Outer Space (2018), Hyper Space (1989), Speedwagon (2015)
(I kind of love this graphic because you can convince yourself that the reasoning behind why it climbs so swiftly in the late 90s is CGI. Should we be doing Mission to Mars and Red Planet together with one as a bonus? Seems like an opportunity there.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Halle Berry is No. 1 billed in Moonfall and No. 1 billed in Perfect Stranger, which also stars Giovanni Ribisi (No. 3 billed) who is in Gone in Sixty Seconds (No. 2 billed) which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (3 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (5 + 1) = 15. If we were to watch Insidious: Chapter 2, and Wicker Park we can get the HoE Number down to 11.
Notes – In the scene where KC is presenting information to a small group of people at a hotel, the wallpaper pattern in that hotel matches the iconic wallpaper pattern in The Shining. This seems to be a nod to the rumor that the moon landing was fake and directed by Stanley Kubrick (director of The Shining).
Josh Gad was originally cast as KC Houseman, but dropped out of the film due to scheduling conflicts.
Bad Movie Twins 