Moon Review

Moon - 97 minutes, directed by Duncan Jones and starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey.

Moon is a tightly scripted one man (more or less) drama that should entertain and enthral in equal measures. Sam Rockwell plays Sam, who works on a base on the moon mining helium 3. He is assisted by Gerty, a robot voiced by Kevin Spacey (obviously influenced by 2001’s sinister HAL). Towards the end of his three year contract, Sam suffers an accident whilst driving around on the moon’s surface. To his surprise and confusion he awakes in the base’s infirmary with no idea how he got there. To say much more would spoil some of the film’s surprises, of which there are several in store for the viewer.

Moon’s greatest strength is its surplus of ideas – questions of identity, sacrifice, environment and ethics are all addressed. A spot on performance from Rockwell also adds emotional heft to the human elements of the plot. Spacey gives a reliably unnerving vocal performance too. Jones’ direction is surprisingly adept for a debut feature and the production values are also surprisingly impressive for a (relatively) low budget picture.

To conclude, Moon is a satisfying and thought-provoking sci-fi in the classic sense of the genre – don’t expect any giant CGI robots punching each other in the face. The first twenty minutes or so are arguably a little slow, but by the atmospheric conclusion (aided by Clint Mansell’s eerie score) the tension will be by nigh on unbearable. Cracking stuff; we await Jones’ next project with much anticipation.