- Location: Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema
- Moon is an excellent illustration of the difference between quoting something and ripping it off. From an early shot of the Moon and the Earth in conjunction to a full-blown "Jupiter and Beyond" moment near the end of the film, references to Stanley Kubrick's science fiction masterpiece 2001 abound. If you don't believe me, just ask the film's unfailingly polite but potentially hostile sentient computer. But Moon is not a remake, a sequel, or a ripoff. Instead, it is an excellent and creative science fiction mystery that successfully wields the audience's expectations against them.
- When we first meet Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), he's starting to fray at the edges. Sporting an uncut beard and wild hair, Sam misses his wife, Tess (Dominique McElligott), and just wants to survive the next two weeks so he can return home. To Earth. You see, Sam is completing his third and final year as the lone occupant of a lunar mining station. Well, he's not exactly alone. Looking after him is a computer named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey) whose cutesy emoticons (an amusing update to HAL's unflinching red eye) register a look of concern over Sam's deteriorating mental health. Before Gerty can intervene, however, Sam's hallucinations cause him to overturn his lunar rover, leaving him injured and stranded on the lunar surface.
- When we next meet Sam Bell, he's recovering in the infirmary. Aside from some memory problems his health seems to have stabilized, but Gerty would rather that he didn't go outside for a while. Is this a genuine interest in Sam's health or an attempt at subterfuge? A briefly glimpsed two-way conversation suggests to Sam that Gerty is, at the very least, lying about the station's communications problems. Increasingly frustrated and short-tempered, Sam performs a minor act of sabotage that convinces Gerty to let him take out a lunar rover. You might say that this excursion helps Sam to find himself, but he returns to the station with far more questions than answers. I don't want to discuss the rest of the film in too much detail, except to say that a certain amount of irony was employed in selecting the details of Sam's alarm clock and favorite T-shirt. Now, he must find a way to escape the station before a "repair team" arrives to put things back in order.
- As mentioned, Moon's greatest success may come from its ability to twist familiar themes into something surprising and interesting. Anyone who has watched the trailer can probably guess who Sam finds out at the crash site and what that means about the staffing policies at the film's mega corporation, Lunar Industries. What they might not anticipate is how Sam deals with this conundrum and where Gerty falls on the issue of workplace ethics. They almost certainly wouldn't predict one of the film's best moments, when Sam finally gets a direct line home only to hang up in terror before the homeowner comes to the phone. The film's compelling plot is only further enhanced by Clint Mansell's wonderfully atmospheric music, some beautifully rendered lunar landscapes, and Duncan Jones' appropriately suspenseful direction. The result is a film that belongs to the small collection of enjoyable and smart science fiction films, a rarefied group indeed.
- It is worth noting that Duncan Jones very sensibly changed his name from...Zowie Bowie. Yep, David Bowie's son.
- The 2001 references are plentiful. I didn't mention the explosive bolt signs or the cute kid's video message.
- A crabby astronomer pointed out that gravity on the station seemed to be normal (i.e. that of Earth). In at least a few instances, Sam was certainly not weighted.
