Some Serious Sam Rockwell/Sam Rockwell Bonding Time – Moon
Written: Jul 13 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Rockwell is fantastic, very interesting story and script
Cons: The ending is a bit of a let down, unanswered questions
The Bottom Line: Very interesting, complicated sci-fi film. Not your typical summer space film, but very entertaining and intriguing.
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| Goatius's Full Review: Moon |
Thinking man's science fiction is usually a hard sell, for studios and audiences alike. For the money men, you've got a complicated, big effects setting, without many flashy scenes for the trailer. For audiences, you don't have big action scenes and explosions, and so have to contend with drama, usually surreal, in a foreign setting. There is no guaranteed payoff for either, and so these movies don't tend to come along too often. Heck, if they wanted to make 2001: A Space Odyssey today, I'm sure more than a few studios would pass.
Moon, despite being set in outer space, is a very small picture. It has grand, epic vistas, and huge moral dilemmas built in, but it all comes down to one guy and his life working solo on the big satellite in the sky. It's very much the Cast Away of sci-fi flicks, even if it's going to end up grossing about 1/100th as much at the box office. It's a shame, though, because it is a strong, interesting film in all aspects.
Sam Bell is reaching the end of his third year on the moon, overseeing the harvesting of energy from the sun, which he ships in canisters to the Earth, relying heavily on this operation in the not so distant future. All Bell has for company is the ship's computer GERTY, and periodic messages from his wife and daughter on Earth. He's lonely, and maybe a little stir crazy, but nonetheless, his contract for working on the moon is two weeks from up, and he looks forward to going home.
Sam has an accident while on the surface inspecting one of the harvesters, crashing into it after the appearance of a young woman directly in front of him, who promptly disappears. Sam wakes up in the infirmary, GERTY caring for him, except he can't remember the accident, and he looks surprisingly healthy, considering what he's been through. After he's up and about a few days, Sam goes back outside the station and finds the crashed vehicle - and finds himself still inside.
It's not a film trying to play with your head, though. This isn't Solaris, with tricky imagery and psychological stress. Yes, Sam does seemingly hallucinate this young woman, but after that the story is pretty firmly set in the reality of what they've created. You are just along for the discovery of what's really going on here, as neither Sam nor the other Sam fully understands what is happening. Initially, anyway.
Sam Rockwell is outstanding as this cracking-up astronaut, in both his incarnations. Playing dual roles can be tricky - even trickier here, as the revelations come about - but Rockwell pulls it off masterfully. The only other character he ever interacts with is himself, and the mobile, hung from the ceiling computer, with its smiley face displays of emotion. Kevin Spacey is the voice of GERTY, and is perfect as a disembodied computer's voice. It's reminiscent of Alan Rickman's excellent job in the lousy Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, as his voice is so recognizable, and yet it fits so well with the physical representation that you can't imagine them going a different way with it.
But yes, basically what you see is a one man show of Rockwell on the moon, playing these different Sam Bells with precision and detail. The desperation of the scenario and the story drive the film through to its conclusion, which admittedly is a bit lackluster, but fits the tale fairly nicely. In the end you wish a little more was explained about how this situation came about in the first place, more about the company behind this endeavor, and primarily what happens after. It doesn't lend itself to a sequel necessarily, but there are some pretty intriguing ideas brought up in the final minutes that could've used more exploring.
Heck, if Disney hadn't just put out that documentary, Earth would've been a fine title for the follow up.
The Goatius Grade = 4.0
See my reviews of other films currently in theaters:
Other films currently in theaters:
Public Enemies
The Proposal
Whatever Works
Up
Year One
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Away We Go
Angels & Demons
The Hangover
Star Trek
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The Soloist
Monsters vs. Aliens
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Goatius
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Member: Joe
Location: Chicago, IL
Reviews written: 221
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