Review of Moon (2009) by Nathan M — 07 Aug 2016

"Sam, get some sleep. You're very tired.".

I have to say, from all the critical praise this movie gets, I'm a little underwhelmed/disappointed I'm afraid. But that doesn't mean this film is by any means a disaster, it's quite the opposite actually.

Let's start with the positives. Firstly, Sam Rockwell can act, he plays Sam Bell (TOO MANY SAMS) , an astronaut who maintains harvesters on the moon that gives energy back to the earth. His performance, especially as the deteriorating version of himself, plays out like an absolute fever dream. It's pretty damn excellent. The soundtrack to this film is wonderful. Combining a somber piano tune with the mysteries scattered in the movie. The atmosphere is cold, simplistic, but cold. Which I guess capitalises on the colour scheme of the movie itself, black and white. GERTY, played by Kevin Spacey, is a big help (maybe top much of a help as I'll explain later). The cinematography and stage design are all on par. But Moon has plenty of wafer-thin plot devices that unfortunately drag it down.

The emotional connection between Sam and his daughter, through his perspective is absolutely harrowing, but through the audiences eyes I feel as if Duncan Jones could've done more visually to interpret his mental breakdown as a clone. The dramatic elements of this movie, whilst mysterious, are unfortunately uneventful for the most part. Yes, there is somewhat of a 'big reveal', but it's bought down by how explained it is. A robotic giveaway by GERTY. Sam's illness could've been highlighted a bit more, there is some gross signs of his body whittling away at itself, but mentally I feel like instead of maybe using a metaphor which is also grounded in reality, Duncan Jones could've utilised the 'perception vs reality' concept hinted at around the time Sam pours boiling water on himself.

In what could've been a fever dream of ambiguity, Moon is sadly not the cold chilling film it could've been. There are some great moments of brokenness, but the character's motivation and reaction to the essential thinly advertised twist of the whole movie is done exceedingly poorly. Still, Moon isn't a disaster and it's very well made in terms of atmosphere. It's just everything else is a bit meh, in an attempt to compensate for lack of ideas to do with the harshness of isolation, especially in a cruel environment like space.

B-.

62/100.