As the poster says 'Moonwalkers' is actually based on a very popular conspiracy theory. The theory is, legendary director Stanley Kubrick was hired by the US government to film a fake moon landing. By doing this America would effectively win the "space race" and give them more time to perfect the Apollo missions. That's the conspiracy. To get a movie that is solely based around this idea had me very interested in the film. It also helped to have two good actors on board. Ron Perlman has already established himself as a great actor but the stand out is Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley). Who, following the 'Harry Potter' films, hasn't done much. After seeing this, I wish he was in more films. He was surprisingly great here. He essentially plays a loser. A manager of a failing band who seemingly can do nothing right. But when chance comes, he fakes being a talent agent to get a whole lot of money. Thinking that he can deliver the legendary director, Perlman willingly hands over the cash. Being a CIA agent Perlman finds out real quick that these guys were impostors and goes after the cash. From here the film goes in a ton of different directions but this is the main idea of the film. What I loved about this movie is the ideas it adopts from Kubricks work. In the first half of the film everything from the soundtrack to the production design has Kubrick written all over it. It was a nice little homage to one of the greatest directors of all time. I loved hearing orchestras play over action scenes and appealing, colorful design. This is all captured very well thanks to pretty good direction and cinematography. I got the feeling that they actually cared about making each shot interesting and unique. However the last half of the film is not this good. It basically forgets about the homages it's paying to Kubrick and devolves to standard, overused music. Not only that but it forgets about the characters attributes it sets up. One character has PTSD that attacks him early and often. It even makes him attack his living room in a daze. Yet, the last half of the film never sees this very specific trait return. Yes, the utterly randomized disease just goes away after taking a couple of illegal drugs. It's hard to get into a movie that forgets about nearly everything it sets up, but this film makes it even harder to get into. There are two or three action scenes in the film and every single one is unconvincing. I'm not sure if the director just couldn't handle it or the actors couldn't. But every single one is shot so you can't see anything or in slow motion. Doing this made these scenes feel distant. The film doesn't put you there. You aren't scared for the characters because you don't care and action isn't convincing enough to get ooos and ahs. By the end it is trying to do so many different things with its story that it loses track of what it's actually doing. The US government, some mob boss, a brothel, and a terrible band are all key aspects to the story by the end. And the film just didn't know how to balance them. It took the fun, quirky, and bright first half and did the exact opposite in the second. By the end the film had forgotten what it was trying to do and basically did everything else it could to hide it's own aimlessness.
Review of Moonwalkers
