Moon Review

Next up I saw a film I doubt few will get the chance to see. It’s playing at a local art house theater and nowhere else that I could find. The movie is called, simply, Moon. It stars Sam Rockwell as a lonely miner living on the backside of the moon somewhere in the “near” future. The movie opens with a mock commercial explaining that the moon has incredible previously untapped energy resources that are now being mined 24/7 and sent back to Earth to meet our never-ending power demands. The company is able to run this show almost entirely by automation with the help of a single human that signs up for a three-year term. It’s a lonely existence except for a HAL-like robotic machine called GERTY and voiced perfectly by Kevin Spacey.

This is a wonderful movie from nearly every aspect. The script is first-rate keeping you engaged at every turn. The theater was full of hushed conversation debating the various potential paths the story might take. The acting is excellent. The look is spot on. At times it looks spartan but only where spartan is called for. The space suit he wears is exactly as dirty as you’d expect it to be. There are times when you think it might be veering towards being too low-budget. It’s then that it blows you away with phenomenal outside vistas that look like they could have only been shot on the surface of the moon. There are instances you can feel the lower budget in play but not often and not enough to ruin the fun. Just don’t go into it expecting everything to look like The Matrix.

This movie will keep anyone with a passing interest in real science fiction entertained for the duration. I’d have to say that, so far, this is definitely in the running for one of the best movies of the year. Sam Rockwell also deserves a serious look when it comes time to hand out year-end trophies. The whole thing would just be utterly ridiculous without his pitch-perfect performance.