The future, man uses Helium-3 to create fusion energy. There’s a shit load on the moon so we mine it there. Though largely automated the moon base has one human operator, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell). Sam is nearing the end of his 3 year contract and seeing as he’s only had GERTY (Kevin Spacey) the bases computer and time delayed messages from his wife, he’s going a bit nuts. Same has an accident when checking out one of the mining machines one day, which leads to him discovering something he should never have known.
And I won’t spoil it, but when the reveal happens I figured the gig right away
That aside, and I’m a big sci fi fan so I jumped straight to the correct conclusion, this is a well plotted and very well acted movie. Which surprised me some what as it’s the dude from Avatar. Not that he sucked in that movie, just that he didn’t have to do much.
For a film about one dude on the moon there was actually a surprisingly large cast list, but there’s only the two dudes I mentioned to talk about really. I will say that the supporting wife is a damned fine actress too though.
Kevin Spacey is basically channelling HAL here. I’d be surprised if it took more than a few hours to record GERTY, but he does a fine enough job. It’s surprisingly difficult to stay in an even tone with your dialogue and he nails it.
Sam has a LOT to play with here and he’s bloody brilliant. It’s a bit of a travesty, but not a huge surprise, that there wasn’t an Oscar nod in his direction for this. Whether he’ll get a chance to stretch like this again is another matter, but he acts the shit out of this movie. I can’t get in to it too much though as it’ll enter spoiler territory.
The film looks great. The moon base is lived in, the equipment has that Star Wars used feel to it. I buy it entirely. And the practical effects are spot on. Also, the music is by Clive Mansell who’s stuff I love. While its not quite as iconic as the Requiem For A Dream music it is some lovely understated piano and electronic work. I think it would probably be perfect to chill out to and might hunt it out.
Moon won’t be for everyone, it’s a little bit Twilight Zone and if you don’t like sci fi this probably won’t win you over. For everyone else it’s nice to see a smart one for a change, even if it is a bit predictable.
Next up: Dan In Real Life
3 comments:
Just stumbled on your blog and think it's pretty great what you are attempting. Looking forward to reading your posts. I wanted to point out that the actor in MOON (Sam Rockwell) is not the same guy as the actor from AVATAR (Sam Worthington). Similar names, but they really look nothing alike. MOON was a great film, probably my favorite of the year so far.
If you don't mind I am going to add a link to my site (http://pretendcritic.com) so I can remember to keep up with your posts. I better get reading, I have a lot to catch up on.
Cheers,
-deric
Deric, my brain just pointed out the same thing to me while watching Choke. How the hell I got them confused I don't know. I used to have a similar problem with Gary Oldman and Gary Sinese even though they aren't all that similar. This is a WAY bigger fuck up than that one and i was going to cheekly remove it, but I'll keep it here now for posterity.
Oh and belatedly I'd say go ahead and link, and thanks very much for reading :)
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