SamRockwell plays blue-collar worker Sam Bell, the man who's been stationed alone in a lunar mining base to oversee the extraction of Helium3 from the moon’s surface in order to alleviate the problem of dwindling resources back home on Earth. It’s a lonely existence. Sam is at the end of his 3 year contract and is desperate to get back home to see his wife and child. His only company throughout his time on the moon has been an artificially intelligent computer system called GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), who’s able to move around the moon base by means of a ceiling attachment and is equipped with a robotic arm to perform maintenance. GERTY is responsible for Sam’s wellbeing and to provide some kind of companionship through the monotony of being alone in space.
However, the mental strain is beginning to take its toll and when Sam suffers a freak accident while out on a routine check on one of the harvesting machines he awakens in the medical bay confused and with no recollection of what happened.
Confined to the medical bay, Sam becomes suspicious when he catches GERTY communicating with his employers back on earth. Having previously been told that the satellite link-up was damaged and live communication with home rendered impossible he knows he’s being lied to.
When another problem develops on one of the harvesters GERTY refuses to let Sam leave the station to investigate. Now paranoid that something is being kept from him Sam distracts the computer and sneaks out to take a look. What he finds out there leaves him questioning his own sanity – another Sam Bell.
Is Sam finally cracking up? Or is there something more sinister behind his discovery?
Sam Rockwell is Superb in sci-fi Movie Moon
It’s difficult to provide any kind of worth-while synopsis without revealing that there are two Sam Bells in this movie and it’s something that Sony seem happy to allude to in their trailers for Moon. Although a major plot development, the revelation is just the beginning of the film’s new trajectory. It’s interesting to see how Moon deals with the intriguing notion of being confronted with another version of yourself, there are further twists in the story as well as the questions of self doubt and mental stability that Sam’s character has to deal with. With only himself and a robot to talk to, it’s a case of ‘trust no one’.
Sam Rockwell is nothing short of superb playing the two versions of Sam Bell, it’s easy to forget that each scene would involve Rockwell delivering most of his lines to an empty space. His timing is impeccable and such is the stature of his performance and subtle editing you almost believe that there are two Sam Rockwell’s in the same room together. Despite being a tad early for the usual awards season, it would be very surprising if Rockwell is not being considered for Golden Globe and Academy nods come 2010 such is the dexterity of his performance
Moon Pays Homage to Kubrick Classic
There have been comparisons made in the media between Moon and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and rightly so. There are similar visual and stylistic approaches, notably between Kevin Spacey’s monotone robot GERTY and the sinister HAL 9000 in 2001. There’s also the similar notion of a man stuck alone in space, doubting his own sanity and the motives of his employers and Moon alsohas that same sense of foreboding coursing through it like Kubrik’s 1968 classic.
But Moon is much more than a cheap imitation, something that Duncan Jones was keen to dispel in his interview with Trevor Johnston for London’s Time Out magazine – “We had a specific human story which was unique and personal. Everything else is just surface, just superficial dynamics. So, yes, there’s a guy on his own with a speaking robot, but the actual story is about a long-distance relationship.”
Moon Goes Back to Basics with Movie Effects
Moon is also a refreshing anomaly on a movie-radar littered with CGI laden blockbusters such as G.I. Joe, Terminator: Salvation and Transformers. With a mere $5m budget the effects had to be at a minimum so in a regression to the halcyon days of 70’s and 80’s sci-fi, Jones used miniature models to create Moon’s landscape and vehicles. What that gives the film is a greater sense of depth than a cartoon-like computer generated image and re-iterates why there should still be room for miniature work in big budget Hollywood as a cheaper, and often more believable option.
Jones also turned to the design team that were responsible for both Blade Runner and Alien to provide his sets with that ‘lived in’ quality first pioneered by George Lucas in his original Star Wars trilogy. It’s an effect that works brilliantly, if you can believe in a character’s surroundings then it helps you buy into the story that much more. It’s a book that several Hollywood directors could do with taking a leaf or two from.
In the same Time Out interview Jones stressed that despite paying homage to sci-fi of the past it was important to partner the old with the new – “I do think that if you take that retro approach but are able to suffuse it with something that’s very much your own, it does make the result an entity in itself”.
While Moon hasn’t been given the wide release that it blatantly deserves don’t be deceived, there is much more to this film than its distributors give it credit for. It’s a thought provoking and brilliantly clever movie but at the same time not confusing, lacking in suspense or too subliminal in its message as to put a more mainstream audience off. And, at just 97 minutes long it’s also nice to know that a good drama doesn’t have to leave you with a numb backside afterwards either.
Verdict: 4.5/5
 |
 |
 |
