Moon

I had never heard of this film before but the story line sounded quite interesting.   The plot to Moon (2009)  is quite unusual and  throughout the entire movie, I was on the edge of my seat.  Director and writer, Duncan Jones, does a magnificent job of creating a sci-fi storyline that is actually quite eerily possible in the near future.

Astronaut, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is contracted with Lunar Industries to work and live on the moon for a total of three years.  His job is to harvest and rocket back to the earth Helium-3, which is now earth’s cleanest energy supply.  Sam lives in isolation, but is accompanied by his fellow robot, GERTY, awesomely voiced by the great Kevin Spacey.  Sam does not have direct contact between the lunar station and Earth, but periodically will receive messages from the base and from his wife, Tessa, and their toddler daughter, Eve.  With only his plants and a robot to talk to, Sam begins to feel how hard living in isolation for three years can be.  He begins to see hallucinations, especially while on the job, and crashes a lunar buggy (I made that up) into one of the working moon machines.

Sam wakes up back at the station with no recollection of the accident.  GERTY instructs him to stay on the base, but Sam manages to go back to the crash site to investigate.  He stumbles upon a surprise that no one saw coming.  With this new discovery, Sam (and the audience) question his sanity, identity, and humanity.  His mission now is to get back to earth alive and to discover who he really is.

I know my synopsis was a big vague, but I really don’t want to ruin Sam’s discovery, because that’s what makes this movie!  My husband described this movie like the TV show LOST-but in space.  For those of us who are LOST fans, I think you’ll understand what I mean.  Moon was non-stop curiosity and unanswered questions.  I think I ruined 80% of the movie by asking, “Wait..what just happened?”  “Who’s that?”  “Go back, I don’t understand what he just said.”  I think we stopped the movie 2 or 3 times to help fill me in.  Even through all the confusion, the film wrapped up nicely and made for a highly intensifying sci-fi drama with a little psychology mixed in.  Moon kinda missed it’s wide release debut in theaters, but I think this is an enjoyable movie and a unique story.  Moon is worth 3.5 stars.  This is a movie that is quite entertaining that will have you saying, “That’s crazy!” in the end.