Moonfall review – lost in space with master of disaster Roland Emmerich

The moon is knocked out of orbit, along with Halle Berry and Patrick Wilson, in this eye-poppingly silly sci-fi from the German director

Astronauts Jo (Halle Berry) and Brian (Patrick Wilson) witness a freak accident, caused by an undulating mass of black matter. When they make it back to Earth minus a crew member, no one believes them; Brian is blamed and blacklisted from Nasa. Fast-forward 10 years, and KC (John Bradley from Game of Thrones), a lonely blogger with a cat named Fuzz Aldrin, gets in touch. The moon has fallen out of orbit; its debris will destroy the planet within weeks. It’s up to Brian and Jo to return to space and defeat what they call “the swarm”.

There are too many characters and too many redemption arcs in this silly, overstuffed sci-fi. At least the eye-poppingly expensive special effects are cool. Apocalypse expert Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day) directs, drawing his premise from a conspiracy theory. “You’re telling me that the moon has the biggest cover-up in history?” says a baffled Jo, now the deputy director of Nasa.