‘Moon’ Review

Released in theaters 7/3/09 (Limited)

Moon, written and directed by first time feature director Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie) is a true sci-fi film that takes place on the Moon.  Its lead actor Sam Rockwell, who gives an amazing performance, carries the film.   This is a real independent film as it only took 5 million to make, and it will go down in 2009 as one of those indie gems that comes out of nowhere and really blows the viewer away.  Duncan Jones instantly goes on the radar in the film world, as he takes an underrated actor in Sam Rockwell and crafts a highly entertaining film in one of the toughest genres in movies today.

Sam Bell played by Sam Rockwell has a three-year contract to work for Lunar Industries. For the contract’s entire duration, he is the sole employee based at their lunar station. His primary job responsibility is to harvest and periodically rocket back to Earth supplies of helium-3, the current clean and abundant fuel used on Earth. There is no direct communication link available between the lunar station and Earth, so his only direct real-time interaction is with GERTY (the voice of Kevin Spacey), the intelligent super computer whose function is to attend to his day-to-day needs. With such little human contact and all of it indirect, he feels that three years is far too long to be so isolated; he knows he is beginning to hallucinate as the end of his three years approaches. All he wants is to return to Earth to be with his wife Tess and their daughter Eve, but he is starting to doubt his sanity and if he will make it during his final days.

I hate the term tour de force, when used in describing an actor’s performance.  It is overused and rarely lives up to the performance of the individual, but I must say that in Moon Sam Rockwell gives a true tour de force.  I can’t really explain why without giving up any of the main plot points, but Rockwell shows so many emotions throughout the film as he becomes angry, sad, confused, joyful, anxious, and sometimes breaks out into a happy dance.  He really is an underrated actor in film today and he adds another haunting performance to his career.  His relationship with the machine GERTY was fantastic.  I said after leaving the theater that if the Oscars were tomorrow he would be a shoe in for a nomination.

Everyone should see this film and I feel it’s going to be one of those movies that don’t get the recognition it deserves.  Duncan Jones surprises here, as the story really grabs you about halfway through, and it never let’s up until the last 20 minutes.  It starts to drag right about the end of the film where I think it could have been a little more story instead of dragging out what we already knew would probably happen.  I guess what I’m saying is that I wasn’t a huge fan of the ending, but it was good enough where I didn’t think it hurt the film too much.  I just really would have loved it if it wowed me at the end.

Don’t get me wrong though it was a great film in a genre that doesn’t get as much respect as it use to.  Sci-Fi films like Star Trek and Star Wars are great, but this is real life Sci-Fi a story that could really happen in the next 10 years or so.  In this way it’s even cooler because they made a true science fiction film instead of a fantasy.

MOON sucks you deep into the darkness of the environment it takes place on, and for that reason it is MADE.

Imdb: 8.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Moviewiseguys: 8/10