Review: Moon - in theaters now

Courtesy of Liberty Films UK & Sony Pictures Classics

Moon is the type of movie where the less you know going in the better. Part of what makes this movie work is how the story unfolds, and how characters come to certain revelations. For the sake of your viewing pleasure, here's a quick spoiler-free paragraph to sink your teeth into:

Moon is smart science fiction, the kind of film more concerned with ideas than death rays or intergalactic space battles. This is a story about solitude, memories and that indefinable substance that makes humans human. Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the lone employee of a lunar mining facility. He is at the end of his three-year contract and has two weeks to go before being sent home to his wife and young daughter. But things start going a little awry when he starts hallucinating and an serious accident on the moon opens a can of worms that changes everything for Sam. This movie is made incredibly well and everything about it works. The acting from Sam Rockwell is impressive, the story is interesting and unique, and Clint Mansell's music elevates the whole endeavor that much more (something common amongst Mansell-scored movies). Fans of smart,well made science fiction will find a lot to like about this movie.

Now to get into the meat of this story (spoilerphobes, consider yourself warned). Sam Rockwell does what only the greatest thespians of all time have been able to do. Like Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers and Jean Claude Van Damme in Double Impact, Rockwell acts side by side with himself and convincingly plays multiple versions of Sam Bell. But he's not playing twins; instead he's playing the part of several clones. But even then, these aren't exact clones of each other. For most of the movie there are two Sam Bells. The story starts with Sam 1 who is at the end of his three-year stint and is ready to go home. When he gets into the accident, a Sam clone is awoken (Sam 2) and is told that his entry craft crashed upon landing on the moon. Basically, Sam 2 is about to start a new three-year contract. And when he finds an injured but still alive Sam 1, they are different people. Sam 1 has spent three years by himself and working on his personal foibles and problems, and is ready to go back home to Earth a changed man. Sam 2 has yet to spend three years focusing on his issues, so he still has a hot-temper and a tendency to overreact and flip out. These Sams act alike but still vastly different, especially when they fight over which is the real Sam and which is the clone. And obviously it would seem that Sam 1 is real and Sam 2 is the clone, but Sam 1 is in for a bit of a shock himself.

Silent Running, Alien and Outland all came to mind while watching Moon, and this movie definitely feels related to that world of science fiction storytelling. Sam only has Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), a robotic assistance unit that can converse and emote and provides a source of company. Gerty is equal parts HAL 9000 and space drones Huey, Dewey and Louie (Silent Running), and Gerty seems to act in the opposite manner that one would expect when seeing a movie like this. Usually the human-assist robots in these type of movies will actually put corporate needs above the values of human life, but Gerty seems to have a conscious and soul of his own. Alien is invoked in terms of the character Sam Bell just being a layman, an average blue collar worker in an extraordinary circumstance, and also in terms of the lived-in, organic feel of the movie's sets and production designs. And very much like Outland, there is a ticking clock of doom in the form of a "rescue team" being deployed to the lunar facility and both Sam Bells anxiously awaiting their arrival, because this rescue team has no intention of rescuing anybody, and every intention of making sure this whole "clones" thing stays under wraps.

The special effects of the movie are impressive, especially considering that the movie was made for $5 million. And with such a small budget, digital effects would have looked wonky, so exterior shots of the lunar facility and the lunar rovers and helium-3 harvesters are done with miniatures and models, which gives everything a very tangible and real feel. Gerty is also very real, as in the robot is a practical effect and not a computer-generated POS floating around the dual Rockwells. Also great is the dual Rockwells, and how they interact with each other and carry on whole conversations, despite both people being portrayed by the same person. This is done through a mix of clever shooting and editing and some slick computer work. The CG in Moon is used only to enhance and bolster, and not as a means unto itself, and it lends the whole piece an air of realism, despite being about a clone operating a lunar helium-3 mining facility.

The movie also raises some somewhat political and moral questions, both in the cost-cutting measures of the company that owns the facility and in the use of clones (especially ones that do not know they are clones). The irony of a "green" company, a corporation that is responsible for reducing humans' dependence on fossil fuels, screwing with genetics and human rights' in order to save money is delicious, especially in our time when "green" companies are still able to make money. But these ideas are simply off-shoots, side effects of the bigger story, the story of what makes a person a person, how memories affect us and our psyches, and the basic components of the human condition. Movies like this are not made very often, films that value smarts and intelligence over explosions and monsters, a movie that doesn't treat its audience like a four-year old child but instead like a thinking, highly functioning adult. Of course, if you like your crap fests and hate movies that make you think, maybe you should stay away from Moon. Stay far, far away. Wouldn't want any of that thinking to rub off on you, right?