They do make movies like this anymore.

Rating: 9/10 (5 November 2010)

The science fiction Genre is so broad that there really should be sub-genres within it.
On the one end you would have Science Action 'Star Wars', 'Independence Day' and 'Avatar' type movies, where there are definitive heroes and villains, space battles, lasers and a general sound and vision extravaganza.
On the other end you would have Science Drama movies like '2001', 'Blade Runner', 'The Thirteenth Floor' where the place is slow, the viewer is required to figure the plot out for himself, the action is minimal and heroes and villains are either non existent or interchangeable.
'Moon' definitely fits within the latter category. 'Moon' is dark, broody and atmospheric, there is only one main character throughout the entire length of the movie and pace of the movie is extremely slow.
Sam Rockwell plays the part of Sam superbly. The effects convey the disconnection and isolation extremely well and the music is minimal and spot-on. The voice of Kevin Spacey for GERTY was rather distracting and I would have preferred a voice that I didn't actually recognise.
The plot is reasonably solid and keeps you thinking. To be honest as with most movies nowadays nearly everyone will figure out where the story is going well before the punchline. I think that movie goers have pretty much seen it all.
***major spoiler Alert*** Many of those who have pointed out plot holes have not really thought their holes through. The most expensive factor in maintaining a staff presence on the moon is the actual cost of the trip from Earth safely to the Moon. It is THE main reason why we've never been back there since 1972. It is cheaper to send an unmanned probe to Mars than it is sending a manned mission to the Moon. The last mission, Apollo 12 cost $1.5bn. In todays costs you're probably talking $50-100bn per single trip.
By comparison, once you've perfected the biological duplication aspects of cloning, the cost of production is negligible. Dolly the sheep didn't cost billions. I'd safely assume that the cost of sending up a module that maintained clones in suspended animation and released them as needed would be negligible by comparison especially being based where there exists a readily available source of electricity.
The level of technology shown in the movie would indicate that despite the advanced level of robotics, a human is required on the base to trouble shoot and manage the operations.
Another plot hole that keeps coming up on IMDb is why if it is possible to program a memory, is it not possible to program a clone to simply perform its duties without question. Again this plot hole coming from so-called sci-fi buffs defies logic. A clone is still an intelligent human being and you cannot program a human being without that human being then questioning their programming. It is far easier to give a human being a purpose and a reason for doing something than to command it to do something as with NLP, hypnosis and brainwashing.
My guess is that the original Sam was sent to the lunar base for the first time with his memories being copied before his duties commenced. The corporation then decided to see how long Sam could stay there before cracking up and discovered that 3 years was his limit. They then gave the clones a limit of 3 years and used the recorded messages from Sams wife to simulate the environment for the cloned Sams. Whereas the original Sam was sent back home, the cloned ones were not.
As with pretty much all science fiction, you still require a certain suspension of belief. You of course have to accept that it is possible to artificially insert memories.
If you really put yourself into the mindset of Sam, the most haunting aspect of the movie really hits home. And that is the realisation that countless Sams will have lived out their 3 year lives in yearning anticipation of going home to their family. To see them climb into the pods expecting to be jettisoned back to earth to then be incinerated was deeply saddening. Not only is Sams life meaningless, he is no more than a product in a line of disposable products.
The only real plot hole for me is Gerty. A corporation with so much invested in the project would not allow its programming to be able to sabotage the operation by helping Sam to learn the truth.
This is one of the reasons why I'm not giving this movie a 10. The other reason being the bog standard typical Hollywood fairytale ending. The perfect ending for me would have been for the two earlier Sams to die having learned that those on planet earth are well aware and accepting of the disposable status of clones and the situation on the Moon, and for the new Sam to wake up oblivious to what has happened.
Sometime hopelessness and the insignificance of our existence in the greater scheme of things is a fact of life that we conveniently forget.
The movie itself raises real questions that will need to be answered soon. Technically we are already capable of cloning a human and it is only a matter of time before we do so, if we have not done so already. If a corporation was responsible for bringing a cloned human into existence would it be justified to view that clone as an 'investment' and therefore the property of that corporation? Would the rest of humanity feel threatened by clones and consider them to be sub-human and therefore undeserving of the rights that the rest of us enjoy?