Sam Rockwell, who played the nebbish, worry-wart security
officer in Galaxy Quest, stars here as Sam Bell, a technician aboard a station located on the moon. He’s working a three year shift, maintaining a fleet of robotic harvesters who scour the lunar surface for helium 3, an energy source that’s much-needed back on earth. When the harvesters are topped off, Sam takes the tanks back to the base, where they are automatically shot back to earth via a mechanical launcher. Life is relatively routine and uneventful for Sam, who spends his time working on a model of Fairfield, his home town. He has company in the form of Gerty, an artificial intelligence entity who’s given voice by Kevin Spacey.
The main communications satellite is down, so there is no two way communication exchanges between the base and earth. But the highlight of Sam’s day remains the regular one-way video messages that he receives and sends to Tess, his beloved wife back on earth. With just two more weeks left on his contract, he can’t wait to get back home to his wife and daughter. But things go awry when Sam suffers an accident by crashing his lunar rover into one of the harvesters…and then things get really strange. Moon is an enjoyable, mind-bending science fiction film which recalls Clarke and Kubrick’s 2001--yet Moon is even more accessible than that masterpiece.
Director Duncan Jones’ Moon is propelled by the sympathetic performance of
Rockwell, upon whose sturdy shoulders the film rests. You’re firmly on the side
of Rockwell’s character from the moment you first meet him. Jones also does a
great job with the twisty story, which begins as an eerie SF mystery that turns
into an on-the-edge-of-your-seat thriller that’s still extremely gripping even
after the main plot twist is revealed. The set design and special effects are
all top-notch, but even more important than that is the fact that the characters
are very relatable--including the soft-spoken Gerty, whose genial personality is
solely the result of Spacey’s voice performance. If you need a change of pace
from the usual space opera that passes for SF these days, then give Moon a shot.
--SF
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