Thought provoking and engrossing, but lacks emotional punch and tension.

Rating: 6/10 (16 January 2010)

There's something subtly wrong with "Moon" that stops it from being a great film (though it's still a really good one). In many ways it's a beautiful piece of movie making - thought provoking, finely shot and engrossing. Sam Rockwell is puts in a tour-de-force performance and the interactions between him and his mirror self are flawlessly executed. As the credits rolled I was left thinking "I should have really LOVED that, but instead I just kinda enjoyed it instead."
What went wrong?
I think somehow the film lacks an emotional punch and a sense of building tension. The events that take place call for a multitude of deep and powerful emotions - isolation, terror, confusion, sadness, excitement and finally joy - yet it fails to really take you to these places. It borrows (in a good way) from other movies that unfortunately *did* get those target emotions right (eg. 2001, Silent Running, Solaris, Gattaca, and Blade Runner) so you always have this comparison field in your head as you are watching it. It's not as lonely as 2001, not as touching as Blade Runner, not as haunting as Solaris, not as joyous as Gattaca, for example. The problem lies in part with the screenplay, which is a little too placid for its own good, and in part with the directing - which reaches for Kubrick but never quite gets there.
But enough focusing on the negative because I don't want to give a skewed opinion of the movie. All told, Moon was an exceptionally well done sci-fi movie that should be seen by all lovers of the genre. It may not excite or punch you in the gut like you'll wish it had, but it gets REAL close. And it's still a refreshingly intelligent and peaceful movie in a field awash with lesser quality work.