A Worthwhile Ethical Dilemma That Needed To Be More Front And Centre

Rating: 3/10 (20 February 2012)

There is a worthwhile ethical dilemma at the heart of this film. Set in the future (although it isn't entirely clear how far in the future) a company called Lunar Industries has developed a way of essentially mining energy from the dark side of the moon and returning it to earth as a clean source of energy here. To keep the mining base operating an astronaut is sent up on a three year contract, where he's completely alone except for a computer/robot named Gerty (a little bit reminiscent of Hal from "2001.") The astronaut is Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell.) Three years is a long time to be totally alone and as the movie opens, Sam is approaching the end of his contract and is looking forward to returning to earth, his wife and his daughter. But in those last couple of weeks, unusual things begin to happen, and it seems as if Sam is having strange hallucinations - perhaps not surprisingly since he's been alone for all that time.
Without giving too much away, eventually this becomes a dilemma about taking a strictly utilitarian view of human life. Is human life only useful as long as it's - well - useful? The question is worthwhile. Even in our own time, there's the danger of human life being reduced to the role we play or the job we have, rather than being honoured for who we are. Mind you, that question really only gets raised once the mystery of what's happening to Sam is revealed, which is the basic problem. It takes quite a while (at least in the context of a movie that lasts only a bit longer than an hour and a half) for the mystery that surrounds Sam to be revealed, and without that answer, the movie is confusing rather than thought-provoking, and you do wonder just where it is that the movie wants to take you.
I guess in the end that was the biggest problem I had with the movie. Aside from the potentially worthwhile ethical question (which I thought should have been a little more front and centre and which should have been raised a lot earlier) this really isn't an especially interesting movie. Sam Rockwell's performance was good. It's basically a one man movie, and he pulls it off. It isn't the most powerful one-man performance I've ever seen. For a truly superb and recent virtually one- man performance think James Franco in "127 Hours." Rockwell's performance doesn't have the power of Franco's, but he's good in the role. The setting is appropriately stark, given that this is set in a space station on the dark side of the moon. Gerty turns out to be a likable enough computer/robot (although I was unconvinced about the need to use Kevin Spacey as Gerty's voice. Who cares? That seemed to be to be little more than an excuse to put a big name in the credits.)
The basic problem I found with this is that it just wasn't that interesting. It wasn't especially energetic and until the ethical dilemma was finally revealed, it seemed to have very little purpose or direction - which is fine to an extent (I understand the need to set up the mystery) but we needed to get to the dilemma a lot sooner than we did. Overall, while there were certainly some redeeming qualities to this, I was disappointed. (3/10)