Moon is a small independent science-fiction movie that is worth seeing.
In a future not too far away, a worker is alone in a lunar base. His job is to overview the extraction of Helium 3 by machines and its shipment to earth, since at that time, He3 has become a crucial source of energy.
At the beginning of the movie, the 3-year contract of this worker played by Sam Rockwell is about to end, and he is looking forward the trip back home on earth. He has grown tired of this loneliness, reduced to communicate with his family via cameras and having as only talking presence a robot (which voice is Kevin Spacey).
The only thing that could complicate his return on earth would be an unexpected event…
This is the first movie of director Duncan Jones (for those interested in people, he is the son of David Bowie), with a small budget, a real challenge for science-fiction movies. Visually, the movie is beautiful, I liked the lunar ground sequences obviously shot with toy-models and some SFX added in post-production, give a fun aspect to the movie. There is a kind of vintage Sci-Fi mood in it, loosely reminding the 1980’s, with some references to older movies such as Kubrick’s 2001, Tarkovsky’s or Soderbergh’s Solaris (as you wish), but closer to less ambitious movies such as Trumbull’s Silent Running.
Maybe the biggest flaw of the movie is there, in its lack of ambition. Having seen a lot of stories of this kind, the plot is simple. When something happens, you know in classic science-fiction there is only some usual options to explain this kind of event. So, after a few seconds of interrogation wondering which option the storyline is going to follow, once the choice is made and obvious, there is no more surprises and the movie is not really mind-puzzling.
But it works thanks to Sam Rockwell, who is incredibly good. He performs a very subtle one-man show and manages to act naturally the absurd events his character goes through. Very pleasant to watch, this movie deserves a 4/6.
