Hollywood studios and their Motion Pictures Code Committees (currently renamed as the "Committees for disparaging the Russikies") designed an expensive vehicle to get rid of inconvenient movies. Namely, if a cinematic work by strange filmmakers contradicts the Party Line, they create another, castrated blockbuster version of the former and throw a publicity campaign behind it. This already happened with the shows The Brink, cancelled by HBO after only one season, and Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot.
So, instead of formulaic but star-studded and pungent - Kate Blanchett, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, Leonardo Di Caprio, Jonah Hill, Tyler Perry and incomparable Mark Rylance, Hollywood fielded and promoted another blockbuster. Moonfall is well-wrought, masterful, but absolutely senseless thriller with only John Bradley from that GoT star factory in an exculpating role. And all this effort to stop a predictable but powerful parable on the danger of overpowering influence of social media and tabloid thinking, "deep fakes" and politicians in bed with mediatech corporations caring only about their campaigns. Neither cinematically uneven but beautiful "Hero" with Dustin Hoffmann and Geena Davis, nor the majestic "Doctor Strangelove" could appear in a current climate of conformism and docility.
P.S. This continues my tradition of pairing movie reviews: [Ex-Machina vs Her], [Inherent Vice of Map to the Stars] and [Strange Magic of Paddington].
