Sundance Review: ‘Moon’

I just got out of the ‘Moon’ screening and I have to say that I was very impressed. It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping it would be, and I might have had higher expectations but what I did take away from it was outstanding.

Sam Rockwell brings brings his a game as usual and proves again that he is one of the best actors in Hollywood. First time director Duncan Jones (besides his short film ‘Whistle’) impressed the hell out of me. He not only directed but also wrote the story for the film.

The story follows Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) who is stationed on the Moon in a not so distant future. His sole job is to monitor and keep a helium 3 station up and operational to provide earth with its newest power source. Sam is coming up on the end of his 3 year contract in which he can return home to his wife and young daughter. ***SPOILER ALERT*** (highlight the text if you want to read it.) During his final 2 weeks on the station he starts to hallucinate and comes into contact with something he never expected. While out attempting to repair one of the harvesters, he gets into a wreck and is badly hurt. From here the movie cuts over to him awakening in the infermary not remembering anything from the crash. After doing some investigation work and realizing everything isnt as it seems he wonders out back to the crash site only to find someone still inside. He brings him back to the base for medical attention and realizes that this person is an exact clone of himself.

Although Sam Rockwell is pretty much the only character in the movie and takes 90% of the screen time, the voice of the robot Gerty, which runs all of the computers, medical equipment and pretty much anything you dont need a human to do, is done by Kevin Spacey(who has 2 movies at Sundance this year). I think that Duncan Jones did a phenomenal job even being a first time Writer/Director, and obviously I cant say enough about Sam Rockwell.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5