Boobie Tassels For Buddha

Moon(2008)

Directed by Duncan Jones

Starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey as "Gerty"

For me moon is reminiscent of the science fiction from long before I was born. It relies on Suspense, and good storytelling rather than big budget effects. At a budget of just under five million dollars, they were able to create sets that had me completely convinced.

The movie start with Sam Bell(Rockwell) in the last two weeks of a three year stint running a mining operation on the moon. He's mining Helium-3 which is shipped back to earth as a clean energy source now used by most of the world.

He has a wife and daughter back home, but the messages he gets from them are always delayed, as the satellite relay has been damaged the entire three years he's been on the moon.

He's the only one there, running the entire station, and his only company is a computer system named Gerty, who is reminiscent of Hal in 2001, his only job being to keep Sam happy and sane.

Sounds pretty standard, and a little boring. and it is. at first. Until Sam goes out to check on a crashed rover, and finds himself inside. He saves the other Sam and brings him back to the base. The rest of the movie is about the Two Sam's trying to cope with the fact that they are not Unique, and solving the mystery of why there are two of them.

There's nothing too complicated about it, if you read this, you'll probably have the movie figured out. But it's not about us solving the mystery, it's about us watching them solve it. And cope with it. As the movie goes on you'll figure it out before they do, because it is predictable. But you'll be caught up in what this experience is doing to them.

Sam Rockwell's performance was fantastic. He goes from funny, to angry, to heartbreaking sadness and it doesn't feel forced. Keven Spacey is great as Gerty, and unlike HAL from 2001, I think he'll surprise you. There are a lot of influences from other science fiction stories of the 60s and 70s and it has that same somber tone of older movies that I find so much more interesting than non stop action and effects.

Duncan Jones has made a couple of indie movies, but this is his first real feature and he definitely delivers. if I had to rate it, I'd say Four out of Five.

~Quantum