Watch "Moon"

I finally got the chance to see Moon today... and I loved it... a lot! Okay, this is directed by David Bowie’s son, who changed his name from Zowie Bowie to Duncan Jones. Now that’s out of the way, I think we can safely say that, based on this remarkable low-budget debut, Mr Jones has come into his own. Making a smart genre film can be a house of cards. You want your film to be different and intellectually stimulating, but the lure to add layers can lead you pile on one to many levels and topple the whole enterprise. (See this year’s Knowing for a prime example.) Of Moon’s praiseworthy elements, I am most impressed with this: for a movie so rich and complex, it is wonderfully simple.

It also has a second act twist that would turn a traditional summary into a major spoiler. What Moon accomplishes so well is a slow burn. There is a specificity of purpose driving the film forward that is so basic it is hard not to read the entire film as a metaphor for the human condition. The wonderful flip of this, however, is that the clothesline on which the picture’s philosophy is hung is based on specific, real, and “hard Sci-Fi .”

It ruins nothing to say the film begins with Sam Rockwell (as Sam Bell) two years and eleven months plus into a three year contract to man an outpost on the moon. His job is to monitor four moon rock munching machines (called Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – although the malfunctioning Luke has been given the nickname Judas), collect the dust and fire canisters back to earth. The payloads are rich in Helium3, a very real substance that could, if harnessed properly, be an energy source better than anything Exxon is rockin’ right now. Bell’s only companion is GERTY, a computer system voiced by Kevin Spacey and manifested physically by a few ceiling-tracked robotic arms (think Fortress) and a clunky main processor unit that displays emoticons.

Okay, so the “just a few more days til retirement” is a plot device older than the celestial bodies themselves, but there’s more to this (and all of Moon) than meets the eye. This cliché is deftly used as a psych-out to keep you from recognizing what is actually going until the film wants you to.

Sam Rockwell, in 99% of the shots of Moon, is sublime and outstanding in his performance. Moon’s director, Duncan Jones has been referring to this film as “Blue Collar Sci-Fi”. While this film may appeal to people who normally don’t care for (or gave up on) Sci-Fi, it is still Sci-Fi. The art direction is breathtaking, from the Lunar rovers to the perfect typography, and the music is crisply elegant yet unnerving.

Moon is on the opposite side of the galaxy of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, and yet, in its own way, it is equally successful. Maybe that's to the credit of the film itself. Moon is a provocative and compelling sci-fi parable of sorts that deserved far more marketing than it received. In an era when grey-shaded Hollywood drudge can cost hundreds of millions and deliver nothing, Moon stands out –and it does so with dignity, on a chump-change budget.

Rent it. Buy it. Download it.... now!