Drama and sci-fi for an exciting evening on the moon's dark side.
Moon (on Netflix)
Grade: B
Director: Duncan Jones (Warcraft)
Screenplay: Nathan Parker (Equals)
Cast: Sam Rockwell (Seven Psycopaths), Kevin Spacey (voice)
Rating: R
Runtime: 1h 37m
By: John DeSando
“I hope life on earth is everything you remember it to be.” Computer Gerty (voice of Kevin Spacey)
Director Duncan Jones’s Moon takes a traditional sci-fi story of a lonely astronaut, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), as it was in Kubrick’s 2001 and Soderberg’s Solaris, and reworks it as a much simpler story of man surviving with his wit and perseverance. Although the CGI is basic and the exterior sets toy-like, it’s the interiority that sparkles with Sam giving the full humanly dose of a man after 3 years mining for energy on the dark side of the moon
The energy company for whom he works is not transparent, for Sam’s messages to his wife, Tess (Dominique McEllogott) seem to have gone nowhere and the messages from her peculiarly circumspect. As Sam interacts with Gerty (Hal anyone?), Sam encounters complications both good and bad. This half of the story is realistic and generally warm although Sam is getting edgy to return to family.
It’s when the clone motif appears that the story gets more interesting and more confusing as we learn who is real, who is clone and more importantly how is Sam # 1 going to get home? Original Sam is deteriorating, new Sam is cocky, and the rescue team arriving soon will not be happy about the clone activity.
Actually, it’s not all that complicated, and it is full of commonplace challenges for spaceman Sam. Having dealt with computer Hal in 2001, the audience is familiar with the shenanigans necessary to outsmart it, but here the longing for home outstrips the cold loneliness of a Hal’s world.
The minimalist Moon does the survivalist theme well because nothing distracts us from Sam’s quest to wrap up his stay and go home. That home-bound motif is a staple of sci-fi that Moon does well:
“You're not going anywhere! You know you've been up here too long man; you've lost your marbles. Whuddya think, that Tess is back home waiting for you on the sofa in lingerie? What about the original Sam, Uh?” Sam #2.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com.
