Country:
United Kingdom
Recognizable Faces:
Sam Rockwell
...and to a certain extent...
Kevin Spacey
Directed by:
Duncan Jones
I'm a sucker for space movies. The atmosphere you can get from the "deadness" of the void can make for memorable setups, especially for horror movie. Event Horizon had such a lasting effect on its generation that serious space movies as a whole tend to terrorize people.
I've taken an eternity to convince my girlfriend to try and see "Moon". As enigmatic the movie looked, a little voice within told me to give it a shot. From the trailer, the movie did seem a little uncanny...
STORTYTELLING
BOOM BOOM action fans beware, this is a one man movie. Sam Rockwell is the only actor who's directly on screen, so from the get go, know that it's a very personal story. There are no explosion and no corpses flying through the screen. The story is about Sam Bell, a mining company employee that badly wants to go home after staying on the moon alone for a three years contract.
A few weeks before the end of his contract, Bell gets hurt while going out on repairs on one of his three harvesters. He puts his helmet on just in time before passing out and wakes up mysteriously back at the base, tended to by Gerty, the buddy computer that's voiced over by Kevin Spacey (that why "to a certain extent"). Suddenly very energetic,unscathed and diligent about work, he gets curious about why he cannot go outside to work. He sabotages a gas pipe and convinces his electronic buddy to let him out.
Out there in the silent void, as he's about to go on the job, he makes an interesting discover. A harvester has stopped with a sudden case of vehicle jacked under its chains. When he opens the compartment to look for the driver he finds...himself?
DIRECTION
Moon is like a pretender trying to seduce you. It's charming, but it's daring. Swift camera movement, great photography, great scene construction, the director Duncan Jones is trying really hard. In a sense, it makes the movie a little heavy, but it's hard to complain about diligent work ethic, even if it's a little bit artsy fartsy.
The space setup is approached with new and fresh eyes to the genre and to Hollywood in general. There are no good guys and no bad guys which is very original to the space theme. Special kudos also for the winks to the classics of the genre, 2001: Space Odyssey being the most evident.
ACTING
There's only one guy to talk about here. Perennial underdog Sam Rockwell. I'm not sure if it's his funny sounding name or something, but he never seems to receive the love he deserves. In Moon, he pulls out a double shift job in the role of a conflicted Sam Bell. It's hard to comment his performance without spoiling the movie, but it's of a high psychological complexity. He has to interpret Sam Bell at different moments of his life...and these two Sams are clashing with each other. For that alone, you have to see the movie. Hell, Rockwell would've made it work as a stage play.
INTEREST
You won't lose your time with a single viewing. Neither with two or three. It's not a movie you watch a hundred times and learn by heart, but it's purchase worthy. Moon racks up among these space movies that leave you with a strange feeling of uneasiness. But it's what you watch space movies for right? It's a little charged up on the artistic side, but it's worth it.
You'll be also touched by the identity crisis of Sam Bell, wondering why the hell his life is falling apart and why is he talking to himself all of a sudden. A believable drama crafted out of crazy circumstances...hey, that's why I watch movies.
Note: A-
