When it comes to disaster movies Roland Emmerich has a bit of experience. The director of "Independence Day," "The Day After Tomorrow," and "2012," Emmerich has overseen an alien attack, turned North America into a frozen tundra, and initiated a flood that rivals the Biblical story of Noah. His latest outing delivers a similar level of destruction but doesn't quite nail the execution on a character level.

The premise behind "Moonfall" is that the moon is not what it seems, and a strange alien force is attacking the moon and causing it to fall toward earth. Chaos ensues, and destructions and explosions abound, along with the requisite amount of humor.

"Moonfall" is at its best when it's focusing on the space stuff. Sci-fi plus conspiracy theories gives Emmerich plenty of room to play around, but he's more restrained than expected. More than half the film occurs on earth with a number of characters who don't really leave an impact. In part, this is due to the noticeable lack of a general population.

For example, when L.A. is hit by a tidal flood, we see water gushing through the streets, but the only noticeable people we see on the screen are disgraced astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley), and the handful of folks at the local "megastructure" meeting. The same is true for other cities. We see destruction from afar but not up close.

The one exception to this happens in a Colorado RV park, but even then, it is brief, as the characters duck into a building for cover, resulting in the up-close-and-personal destruction occurring out of sight.

Halle Berry drives most of the decisions in the story as NASA director Jocinda Fowler. After learning the truth of a decade-plus cover-up, Fowler has to make amends with Harper and figure out how to return to the moon. That's not an easy task in 2021, given that the shuttle program had been mothballed for a decade. Pulling a shuttle out of a museum and just filling up the tank is a bit of a stretch, but hey, it's a disaster film so we'll go with it. Besides, as a space geek, just seeing a shuttle on the big screen was a bit of a thrill.

Interactions between Fowler and Harper run the gamut from natural to somewhat forced, but Berry and Wilson make the chemistry between the two believable. They easily play off each other as old friends throughout most of the film. Bradley is fantastic as Houseman, delivering a loveable performance as a slightly nerdy geek who's been underestimated all his life. He even has a cat named "Fuzz Aldrin." Bradley rounds out the main cast well.

Once the three of them are inside the moon and facing off against the alien threat, the movie finds its stride. I really wish that this section of the film arrived earlier and was longer. The interior design of the moon's megastructure was intriguing, and it provided a massive landscape that was just begging to be explored. There was also plenty of room for a creative space-based dogfight.

Although we get some of both (exploration and dogfighting), it ends up feeling too brief. We know Emmerich can do sci-fi well — he directed and co-wrote "Stargate" — so it was mildly disappointing to get teased with all of this potential in the third act but not get to dive into it. Instead of just going hard on the sci-fi aspect, Emmerich devotes screen time to earth-based drama.

While the heroes are doing their thing, their kids are attempting to reach a safe haven on the ground. There was potential here, but it didn't pan out because Emmerich added family drama that didn't really mesh with the rest of the movie.

In the end, "Moonfall" pretty much delivers what you'd expect. Is it a perfect film? No. Is it a dumb film? You bet. But it's the glorious kind of dumb that provides a fun spectacle, so long as you're willing to check your brain at the door.

Score: 7.0/10

"Moonfall" is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 2 hours and 4 minutes. It is showing in standard theaters and in IMAX theaters.