Dark side of Moon left me cold

Rating: 3/10 (31 October 2009)

This isn't really a Sci Fi film. More of a psychological thriller with an absence of thrill. Not exactly the film I eagerly anticipated. Great set up, great cast, so much unfulfilled potential.
From the word go I felt uneasy about this flick. The set up lacked any credibility. A multi billion dollar Helium 3 mining operation on the moon manned by just one person. Come on! Hadn't the filmmakers heard of the Apollo Missions? NASA sent three astronauts on short trips there. You seriously telling me that investors who have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into this long term operation wouldn't have provisioned for at least half a dozen employees. Just doesn't make logical sense. I also found it jarring that Sam Bell wasn't in constant contact with his bosses back home. Realistically he would be checking in with them like clockwork. And if there was a communication problem it would be a top priority to fix it, wouldn't it?
I also had other problems with this film. When our protagonist first came in contract with himself I assumed he was suffering a mental breakdown. Then the filmmakers persisted with the plot line that he was indeed cohabitating the base with his clone. Why send other employees there when you can manufacture a new human from scratch? Yeah right. Makes sense to me. Or then again maybe he was indeed delusional? At that point I couldn't give a rats. I didn't care about our lead character. I was more concerned with the time I'd wasted watching this pretentious drivel.
I'm a big fan of both Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. Got to say that I thought Spacey was totally wasted playing the voice of GERTY, a poor man's HAL if ever there was one. Could have had Spacey's next door neighbour play the role and it wouldn't have made any difference. And those cheesy smiley faces on GERTY. Were they trying to make the computer prop look as cheap as possible? This film was about as gripping as one of those bulky space suit gloves. I'm a big Sci Fi fan. This film could just as easily been set in the South Pole. The Sci Fi element is peripheral to the story. I felt Silent Running was a much better exploration of the dilemmas faced by man stuck in the void of space.
I can not work out why this film has attracted so much kudos. By all means judge it for yourselves but a word of advice, keep the fast forward button handy. This film's a sleeper, in the ZZZZZZ sense.