Fletch's Film Review: Moon

Duncan Jones' Moon is no 2001-style film where man must battle a computer gone wild. Nor is it some, um, 2001-style film set to awe us with artistic pictures of space and space-age technology and architecture. Instead, it settles into a nice middle ground as an adult-oriented, psychological drama that just happens to be set on the surface of the moon.

Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, an astronaut serving out the last days of a three-year contract at a lunar mining station. Earth's future inhabitants have discovered a way to harness and transport helium-3, a powerful energy source that enables earth to sustain life and provide energy in a much greener fashion. Bell's job is to maintain the station in the event of minor hiccups with the mining machinery and basically ensure that nothing breaks down. As you can imagine, though, living solo anywhere, much less on the earth's satellite some 240,000 miles away, is a recipe for a mental disaster.

But Jones, working on his first feature and adapting his own original story, zigs the film when you expect it to zag. By doing so, he takes what might have boring (essentially a one-man play) and makes it thoughtful and exciting - to say more would spoil it. All the more impressive is what he accomplished with a shoestring $5 million budget. Having a small cast helped (I can think of only seven actors that are seen or heard from in the entire film), and having the lead as a personal friend no doubt was a boon as well. To cut down on special effects, lunar surface shots were shot using miniatures. And the whole affair is guided by a Clint Mansell (The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream) score. Put it all together and you have a feat of budget filmmaking ("budget" is a relative term in Hollywood, where $5 million gets you maybe craft services and lighting on a typical film) that might be more impressive than Clerks was 15 years ago.

The biggest boon has to be Rockwell. My feelings on him have bounced all around over the years. I first got to know him in the charming 1996 indie Box of Moon Light, which starred Jon Turturro as a lost in middle-age husband and father and Rockwell as "The Kid," an eccentric who lived "off the grid" in a rural forest, stealing electricity to light up his mobile home. He was appealing as hell, and the charisma he showed left no doubt as to where his career was headed.

Over the next five or six years, he continued to be gainfully employed by the independent film scene in a growing capacity, going from supporting/ensemble player to lead until the the studios came calling, with Rockwell landing smaller jobs in The Green Mile and Galaxy Quest, and Charlie's Angels. But it wasn't until George Clooney cast him in 2002's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind that he truly broke, setting him up for future Hollywood stardom, from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to Joshua to Choke. Like many, he still mixes in an occasional indie, but with appearances in this summer's G-Force and next summer's Iron Man 2, he's cemented a place for himself with the big boys.

Over time, I went from pulling for him (especially in Box and Galaxy Quest, which he nearly stole from seasoned veterans such as Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, and Sigourney Weaver) to thinking he might be getting a bit too big for his britches (Matchstick Men, Choke). It didn't look like he was having fun anymore, and it didn't appear as though he was all that invested in the roles, merely doing his "Sam Rockwell" thing. Moon has brought me back to him. All pretense is gone. We see a vast array of emotions and vulnerabilities. And any time an actor can hold the screen by himself for 90 minutes and not grate on you at all? Proof that he and/or his director are doing something right.

If you're looking to see some sh*t blown up, avoid Moon. But if you're looking for the elusive "cool indie movie of the summer" (which I don't know if we've have the past few years), this just might be it. Seek it out.

Fletch's Film Rating:

"It's in the hole!"


P.S. - I can't believe I didn't manage a way to mention what might have been my favorite part of the movie - GERTY the computer. Voiced by Kevin Spacey, GERTY is a HAL-like computer that assists Sam in running the station and acts as the chief source of interaction for him. The best part, though? GERTY has a 6 by 6 square inch screen on the front of him that features a single animated image of a smiley face (like you might seen in any number of text messages or emails you receive in a given day). As Sam's emotion changes, so does the smiley that GERTY displays. Such a small, subtle touch, but it cracked me up.