Moon

Moon (R) --edited

Genre: Sci/Fi
Cami's Rating: 4 stars
Jake's Rating: 4 1/2 stars

We're lay-fans of sci-fi--avid Twilight Zone watchers and space movie enthusiasts--so we're always up for a good "alone in space" kind of movie. We've watched a few (Solaris, The Sun, etc.), but we've always had complaints. This is the first time we can really say that a relatively slow-moving movie with basically one actor in it was really worth the time.

Summary: It's the future, we get all our energy from the sun, harvested from the moon. Our hero, Sam, is doing a 3-year tour of duty alone in the base on the moon. He fixes stuff, he keeps track of stuff, he sends the energy that runs the whole world home. His only companion is a robot/computer named Gerte. He's almost done--only 2 weeks left. He can't wait to get home to his wife and young daughter. But of course it's not that simple, and Sam will realize there's more than meets the eye about his job on the moon. Sure we've heard all of this type of thing before, but it's the delivery of the human aspect of the situation that really moves the plot and engages the viewer.


Thoughts: So, yes, there's a twist, but it doesn't come at the end as a big shocker. In fact, they lead you into it pretty slowly, and you are hardly shocked at all. In fact, Sam isn't even really shocked, which I appreciate. I hate that period of discovery in a movie sometimes, when people really have to figure out what's going on. It was there, and sufficient, but it wasn't too strong. We just got on with it. And the twist comes in the middle, so we've got the rest of the movie to deal with the fallout, which was very interesting. I guess it wasn't very fast-paced, but there was enough action to move everything along nicely, and enough down-time to really think about things and figure them out for ourselves. I liked the outcome. I thought the message, though not "important" per se, was thought provoking. In the end, it felt realistic, genuine, and very well-done.