Moon (2009)

the audience applauded

i must have seen a different film!!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Moon was the surprise that every science fiction fan was waiting for- low budget, high on ideas and low on CGI it is a masterpiece of independent cinema. Not many are aware that the director Duncan Jones is the son of the legendary David Bowie. Moon is fantastic filmmaking and all the praise heaped on Sam Rockwell- who is completely alone throughout the film except being accompanied by a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey- is rightfully justified. Moon is one of those rare science fiction films that everyone, even non-sci-fi fans need to watch

If there is one thing that has become fairly pervasive in 21st century Hollywood filmmaking, it is the proliferation of films whose main attraction are compute-generated images (CGI). This can be seen in the enormous proliferation of comic book spectacles such as THE AVENGERS, THE AMAZING SPIDER MAN, and IRON MAN, as well as "apocalyptic" films like THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, GEOSTORM, and "2012". But the 21st century has also seen a fairly huge number of films that verge more on hard and realistic science fiction concepts. This particular sub-genre was likely started by director Stanley Kubrick and his groundbreaking 1968 sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and continued on into the mid-1990s by Ron Howard's brilliant 1995 saga APOLLO 13 (recreating the saga of that almost-doomed 1970 lunar flight). And on occasions we have seen how science fiction can be done on relatively spare budgets, but somehow not stinting on credibility. This was the case with the 2009 film MOON, a combination of science fiction and psychological thriller components that was the directing debut for the British-born Duncan Jones.In MOON, Sam Rockwell portrays a lunar mining engineer on a three-year contract for Lunar Industries, supplying fusion energy to an energy-depleted population back on Earth via helium and solar wind collection on the dark side of the Moon. His efforts, and those of his employers, have reduced the carbon footprint of Earth's atmosphere by close to seventy percent. But the three years of being at that base totally alone are taking their toll on Rockwell, given how absolutely homesick he is for his wife and family. His only real companion is a robotic computer (oddly) named Gerty (voice of Kevin Spacey); and absent a "real" human voice, Rockwell seems to be slowly sinking into paranoia. An accident with the lunar harvesters leaves him in a coma for several days during the final weeks of his tour of duty. But when he comes to, he finds to his shock a clone in the process of doing all his chores; and his paranoia and madness increase further. In an effort to find out more, Rockwell and his clone, along with a little bit of help from Gerty, find a storage area where there are, in fact, literally hundreds of clones of Rockwell, ready for operation if the "real" Rockwell ever got into an accident on the lunar surface (which he, of course, did); it was done as a cost-cutting operation on the part of Lunar Industries to ensure that the production of fusion energy not stop, even if Rockwell did. This will set up a showdown at the end once Rockwell is taken back to Earth.Jones, the son of the late British rock icon David Bowie (whose 1969 hit "Space Oddity", after having been a British smash at the time of Apollo 11's landing on the Moon, became a belated U.S. hit in 1973, and jump-started his career), had a mere $5 million or so to toy with in the making of MOON, which was based on a story of his and scripted by Parker, a close friend of his. But much in the same way that Douglas Trumbull made a slim $1.2 million budget go a long way with his 1972 cult classic SILENT RUNNING, so too does Jones with MOON. And while it may be true that Jones' film takes its cue from a lot of science fiction films of previous decades, at least one can say that Jones borrowed from the better ones. Because Rockwell is virtually the only live "human" character in the film, his character functions very much the same way Bruce Dern did in SILENT RUNNING, as a caretaker of a vast resource that will prove beneficial to Earth. And of course, Spacey voicing the computer Gerty has its roots in Douglas Rain's voice of HAL 9000 in both "2001" and its much-underrated 1984 sequel "2010". MOON also ingeniously utilizes elements of such films as ALIEN, CAPRICORN ONE, and OUTLAND in its side plot of corporate malfeasance endangering its employees. The film is also helped out by a very good modernistic score by Clint Mansell, whose credits include "11:14", THE FOUNTAIN, and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM.While MOON is not necessarily the fastest-paced film ever made, and the idea of Rockwell being on the screen all by himself for extended periods of time may not be everyone's cup of tea, Jones nevertheless makes the setting of the film, and its depictions of the desolate lunar landscape and of space itself extremely convincing on a budget that would normally not pay even for just one set piece of most Hollywood blockbusters. The final verdict is that MOON should be counted at the very least as a minor gem of a genre, science fiction, that might seem passé (but emphatically is not) in the 21st century.MOON gets an '8' rating here.

Moon (2009).Chipper F. Xavier, Esq.Sam Bell (Rockwell) is a one-person mine operator employed by The Company on the far side of the moon in the year 2035. With a mission plan of three years, Sam is scheduled to return to earth in two weeks. As the time for his departure nears, Sam suffers a catastrophic accident which reveals a deeper, more sinister plan by The Company to keep Sam from ever returning to earth.Writer-director Duncan Jones (Source Code, Warcraft: The Beginning) with writer Nathan Parker craft a terrifying tale which is set, directed and acted like a major motion picture event. Surprisingly, the sole actor to appear onscreen is Sam Rockwell, and the film is even more stunning because of it.All of the set pieces when taken together deliver an effective seventies feel, and the robotic assistant GERTY, voiced by Kevin Spacey, has a quaint and realistic appearance. Despite its modest budget of 5 million dollars, Moon comes off as a much more expensive film.The real surprise of Moon is not Sam Rockwell's skill in carrying the movie on his sizable shoulders, nor is it in the effective way dialog is utilized. Moon's greatest achievement is in normalizing dehumanizing behavior by corporations, and in so doing it forces the audience to bear witness to the atrocity.What does it mean to be alive? What responsibilities does mankind have in safeguarding living creatures? Who, or what do we classify as a human being? Moon's answers may shock you, but in our examination of the human condition, life can never be taken for granted. For these reasons, Moon is a cinematic masterpiece: With just a handful of actors, Duncan Jones manages to capture the hidden meaning of our existence - and all we have to do is watch, reflect and learn.

If you need an introduction to the greatness of Sam Rockwell, watch Moon. Do you love Sci-Fi and need a new era of a great Sci-Fi to watch? Watch Moon. Want to know how to construct a film on a shoestring budget, but still make a modern masterpiece? Watch Moon. Okay, masterpiece is a bit excessive. However, Moon is a surprisingly good and important film. And I don't mean anything bad by that, I just mean it's essentially one actor, by himself, for an hour and forty minutes. That can get extremely old if it's not done right or if it's not the right actor. Good for Duncan Jones he chose Sam Rockwell. The plot is nothing we've never seen before, but it rides a nice line for a while and takes a nice turn into the second act on a different storyline. It's a great showcase for Sam Rockwell's abilities and Duncan Jones, in his directorial debut (he also directed Source Code, which I liked), sets the stage for Sci-Fi movies for generations to come. I really mean that. You don't have to have the over-the-top budget or star or effects or bloated, fat-cat, studio executives making all the wrong calls. All you need is a baseline budget, a story and an actor and director that share the same vision. That's the great thing about the Sci-Fi genre, anything you can imagine you can do and that just exists in that world because it's unknown. One thing I didn't love about the film, SPOILERS FOR A NINE YEAR OLD FILM, the stakes were always being raised, but kind of like The Martian, there was never this fever pitch moment that really accentuated the entire second act. Plus, at the end, Gerty just agrees to help Sam go? How? He's a robot controlled by the Lunar Corporation. At times there wasn't enough struggle or grit built into the story, some very convenient breaks in there. They could have accentuated the countdown clock more and had Gerty interfere more, since he's the only real hurdle for the healthy Sam in this film, but there didn't have that. Moon wasn't my favorite movie I've ever seen, but I think it's a very important movie for the Sci-Fi genre and looking back on this in twenty or thirty years, we will see the importance and appreciation for a film like this. Rotten Tomatoes says, "Boosted by Sam Rockwell's intense performance, Moon is a compelling work of science-fiction, and a promising debut from director Duncan Jones." I agree. Again, the ratings may be a little high for me personally, but it's right in the sweet spot.