Moon (2009)

“Perhaps you’re…imagining things.”


Moon is without doubt one of the best, if not the best, science fiction films of the decade. Whereas most recent attempts at science fiction focus more of their attention on action rather than intelligence Moon does exactly the opposite putting itself in the cateogory of other classic sci-fi's such as 2001:A Space Odyssey, Alien and Blade Runner.

The film is Duncan Jones' debut feature length film and the son of David Bowie (yes really!) does not disappoint by giving us a film that delivers and can be enjoyed on many different levels. It tells the story of Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) who is isolated on the moon working for Lunar Industries. Their and his project is to extract an energy, Helium-3, that is found in the moon's rocky surface, which is much needed as a power source back on planet Earth. Bell's only companion is GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) a thankfully pleasant robot who bears many silimilarities to 2001's HAL (it would have been a tragedy if GERTY had deteriorated in the same way HAL did, hence the use of 'thankfully'). GERTY is a great assett to Bell and acts as a great source of company as Bell's only contact with Earth is through pre-recorded messages from his wife and daughter.

I will refrain from plot spoiling but what I will say is that Moon raises and touches upon many philosophical questions regarding personal identity. Questions such as, what is that really constitues I? Is it bodily identity? Is it memories and thought? Both? Or are both of these insufficient? There are a couple of twists along the way that help raise this problems and I hope you find yourself pondering over these once these twists are revealed.

Moon also displays perfect pacing. At only 90 minutes long it is surprisingly short for a film that calls itself an intelligent science fiction film. We would expect it to be longer. Why I'm not sure, but we would. But it's running time is perfect. Jones fits everything that is necessary into the hour and a half and nothing feels unecessary and I wasn't left with a feeling of wanting more.


There are also some gorgeous visuals. The moon and surrounding space looks fantastic. The numerous shots of the harvesters going about their work are gorgeous and there are no showy, unecessary special effects that we associate with your more action filled science fiction films.

Aronofsky's The Wrestler was 2008's character driven piece and Moon is surely 2009's. It is all about Sam Bell and Sam Rockwell is incredible in his role. He carries the film perfectly in what is surely an Oscar worthy role!? Sam Bell was likeable and we sympathised with him and this was all down to Rockwell superb acting skills.

Moon is currently my favourite film of 2009. It's a great blend of science fiction with philosophy and even if philosophical issues aren't your thing it can still be enjoyed as it provides us with an enjoyable, fairly easy to digest story and a couple of humourous moments. It's a modern era rarity to get such a thought provoking science fiction film when instead we are given sci-fi action failures such as I,Robot and the disappointing big budget Star Trek reboot. The sad thing is not many will see Moon unless the marketing improves for the DVD release. It's received little advertisement both on television and on billboards and has had a worldwide limited cinema release. In fact The only advertisements I've seen for it were on the tubes in London on a recent visit and this is a real disappointment. What isn't a disappointment is the final product. See it.

Rating: 9/10 - highly recommended.