Moon 2009

     Sam Bell has a three year contract to work for Lunar Industries. For the contract's entire duration, he is the sole employee based at their lunar station.  His primary job responsibility is to harvest and periodically rocket back to Earth supplies of helium-3, the current clean and abundant fuel used on Earth.  There is no direct communication link available between the lunar station and Earth, so his only direct real-time interaction is with GERTY, the intelligent computer whose function is to attend to his day to day needs.  With such little human contact and all of it indirect, he feels that three years is far too long to be so isolated?  He knows he is beginning to hallucinate as the end of his three years approaches.  All he wants is to return to Earth to be with his wife Tess and their daughter Eve.  She was born just prior to his leaving for this job.  With two weeks to go, he gets into an accident at one of the mechanical harvesters and is rendered unconscious.

     Moon is a good psychological sci-fi drama with some emotionally big ideas and some strong language.  Starring Sam Rockwell as Sam, he is a lone astronaut with just a computer for company.  This movie touches on themes that range from isolation, unethical corporate behavior to the very nature of existence and what it means to be human.  Positive character traits include compassion, empathy and teamwork.  Sam tends to use bad language when he is under stress!!  This movie has some scenes of violence with a fist fight that results in a bloody nose and some mild body horror elements as a character's body starts to decay.  During this scene, the person vomits blood and loses a tooth.  There is also a vehicle crash with mild bloody injury and a character accidentally burns their hand with boiling water.  There is one brief scene between a couple and a woman strips to her underwear.  A man's naked bottom is shown in the shower.  With its existential themes, families will have a LOT to discuss when this thought-provoking movie is over!!  2 1/2* (This movie is OK)

Special Note:  Kevin Spacey read the script and agreed to voice GERTY but only when the film was finished and if he liked it.  He loved it and he recorded his lines in half a day.  This film was written for Sam Rockwell but Duncan Jones wanted to cast him in a film different from this one.  Jones and Rockwell could never come to an agreement on which part Rockwell should play?  Because he wanted to work with Rockwell so much, Jones created this film for him.  Outdoor moon scenes were shot using practical effects (small models).  Shooting took place over 8 days according to Cinefex magazine July 2009.  

Mistakes:  The final time Sam tries to log on to the computer, before Gerty does it for him, the "Access Denied" voice chimes in before he is finished typing in the password?  When Sam is watching the video message from his wife Tess and young daughter Eve, the boom mic operator intrudes into the right of the frame a few times.  When GERTY tells Sam he can't go outside and at the first Eliza transmission, the computer monitor reads "satellite link lost" but the word "satellite" misspelled?  When Sam first launches a full canister of helium-3 back to Earth, he repeatedly hits two keys at a time while punching in the launch code?  

97 min, Drama directed and written by Duncan Jones and also written by Nathan Parker with Sam Rockwell, Kevin Sapcey, Cominique McElligott, Rosie and Adrienne Shaw, Kaya Scodelario, Benedict Wong, Matt Berry, Malcolm Stewart.

Note:  Imdb 7.9* out of 10* with 337,222 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 90% with 194 critic reviews, 89% with 100,000+ audience scores, Roger Ebert 3 1/2*, Metacritic 67 out of 100 with 29 critic reviews 8.3* out of 10* with 510 user scores, The Guardian 3* out of 5* Peter Bradshaw, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 2688 reviews, Common Sense Media 1* drinking, drugs & smoking, 3* violence, sex, positive role models, 4* language.