Moon (2009)

VERDICT:
8/10 Crappy Jobs on the Moon

Isn’t it great to get really psyched up about a movie and not get let down by it? Love that feeling.

Moon takes place in the future…on the moon. It’s about a guy who’s been hired by an energy company to harvest nutrients from the moon for three years by himself and he’s got two weeks left before he gets to go back home to Earth. Then things get weird when he finds another guy on the moon who looks exactly like him. Maybe it’s his twin, maybe he’s been on the damn moon too long and he’s going batshit, who knows?

And that right there is the draw to Moon.

I love science-fiction movies, especially original ones. And if Moon gets major points in any category here, it’s definitely in the originality department. This is going to be one of those reviews where I have to be careful about what I can say because I don’t want to give anything away, but trust me, the synopsis alone should be enough to convince you that this is a really unique story, one of the more unique science-fiction movies in recent memory in fact (Sunshine and Children of Men being the noteworthy exceptions).

It’s the debut effort by screenwriter Nathan Parker and director David Jones (who’s freakin’ David Bowie’s son, who was once called Zowie Bowie before he changed his name), and while you can tell Jones is somewhat green behind the ears when it comes to directing, it does the trick, and it’s a damn impressive first effort by Parker. They keep the movie very simple in terms of pacing and plot and do a good job of making a potentially complicated-as-all-hell story pretty manageable to follow.

The guy on the moon is also played by one of my favorite actors who still doesn’t get the due credit he deserves, Sam Rockwell. Don’t know Sam Rockwell? Check him out in The Green Mile and Galaxy Quest for starters. He’s got great range and he does a fine job of carrying Moon’s script along considering he’s in every single scene.

And it’s really something else to watch Rockwell playing the two lead roles at the same time. I’ve seen a lot of movies where there’s the same guy on-screen playing twins or something along those lines (there’s a great movie called Dead Ringers that does awesome things with this premise, too), but this is the first time I’ve ever been really impressed not only by how it was pulled off from a technical standpoint, but by how well the two characters interacted with each other. Bonus points for that one.

Even though I really liked Moon, I can’t shake the feeling that more could have been done with it, like it was almost too simple for its own good at times. I don’t know how I would change it or add to it, but I felt like Jones could have sped things up a bit at times. A small complaint considering I never looked at my watch once and it’s also his first movie.

Anyway, if you liked 2001: A Space Odyssey, you will really like Moon. It’s got that same kind of desolate, “I’m-alone-in-space-and-the-shit-has-hit-the-fan” vibe to it. And even though it’s not going to convert anyone if you’re not into science-fiction, it’s really worth taking a look at as it’s unlike anything else you’re going to see this year.

Did I mention it’s made by David Bowie’s son, Zowie Bowie? And Sam Rockwell’s the man, so see it for him, too.