Small, serious and mostly satisfying.

Rating: 7/10 (5 December 2011)

Many reviews talk about how Duncan Jones' succinctly titled "Moon" represents a return to "hard" science fiction in the same line as the classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" which both true and not exactly correct. The film actually is more in keeping with the existentialist spirit of "The Truman Show" or Tom Cruise's "Vanilla Sky" and to a lesser degree "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Sam Rockwell's Sam Bell learns to doubt even the most fundamental concepts as his memories, identity and humanity as it unfolds that he and the sentient mining operation robot which shares the moon with him, GERTY, have far more in common than he initially imagines. To describe why would get into spoiler territory but Rockwell and Duncan do a very convincing job of selling the central conceit and creating an entertaining science fiction story with $5mil, basically 1 actor, and the voice of Kevin Spacey. The story lingers with as much as the plot of the spectacle "Avatar" which was 55 times the cost. My biggest objection with the film is an incongruous happy ending which suggests the company's moon-based personnel practices would be viewed with scandal -- maybe by this point in humanity's technological evolution, such procedures would be public?