Sam Rockwell Soars Over the MOON

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2010)

Sam Bell (Sam Roackwell) works on the moon for a company called Lunar Industries. In the distant future, the Earth's natural resources are all used up. Lunar Industries has decided to farm the dark side of the moon for He3 which is then sent back to Earth to use to run the planet. Sam Bell's job is to make sure all the equipment is running well. At the beginning of the movie we join Sam, who has 2 weeks left on a 3 year stint. The only source of camaraderie that Sam has, is his robot GERTY (voiced perfectly by Kevin Spacey), who seems to be a distant relative of HAL from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. The only way Sam can communicate with his family, wife Tess (Dominique McElligott) is through video postcards.
during one of Sam's ride in his moon rover, he gets in to an accident. After blacking out we are taken to a few days later when Sam wakes up in sick bay. Sam doesn't remember what happened or why he is in sick bay. GERTY tells Sam that his bosses have said for him to rest and they are sending a rescue ship to fix rover and collection vehicle that Sam crashed into. After a few days, Sam is able to talk GERTY into letting him outside, and he visits the crash site. Upon looking in the rover, he finds a body there. Sam brings the body back to home base, and the person he finds is, Sam Bell. The viewer doesn't know if one of the other is a clone, or a figment of Sam's imagination, or a dream.
Duncan Jones (who also directed and is the son of rock legend David Bowie) and Nathan Parker co-wrote an amazing piece of cinema that makes the viewer think. You're not sure if everything you've seen is real, and that's the way it should be. You can see that Jones and Parker have been influenced heavily by 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, from GERTY, to having classical music playing when Sam goes out to walk or drive around on the moon, to the lonely worker.
Sam Rockwell does an amazing job of acting only against Kevin Spacey's voice and himself. This is essentially an actors movie. If you are looking to see how to be a great actor, Rockwell's performance is one to be seen. It's a real shame that this movie was released in the summer, during the time of the blockbuster, because this is certainly a movie that should be seen by everyone.