Sunday, July 26, 2009

"Moon" Film Review



"Moon" is a new science fiction film starring Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell and Kevin Spacey as the voice of the moon base's robot, Gerty. The story is about how Sam prepares for his return to earth after mining Helium 3 for three years. He has two weeks left on his contract when he starts to hallucinate and see mysterious figures. During one of Sam's visits to a Harvester, a giant mining vehicle, he crashes his moon buggy into it due to seeing a hallucination of a girl. To give any more details would spoil the movie.

Director and writer Duncan Jones (Rocker David Bowie's son) has crafted a thoughtful and suspenseful movie. He guides Rockwell without special tricks, which is refreshing given the solitary nature of the movie. Rockwell responds and gives a riveting performance. The special effects are more reliant on models than CGI which gives the movie a more realistic feel. There are clear nods to "2001", "Silent Running" and "Outland."

This is an intelligent science fiction movie. We haven't seen this in years. It's only limitations is the lack of more dialogue to help explain the characters motivations. For example, it could do a better job explaining why Gerty does what he does, etc. These are minor complaints. For this is an excellent science fiction movie which explores the nature of humanity and man's relation to technology.

Here's the trailer for the movie. The grade for "Moon" is B+.

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