Sam Rockwell's performance is incredible, but the film itself is slow and tedious

Rating: 4/10 (18 October 2016)

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is an employee of Lunar Industries and is on a three year mission whereby he is searching for resources on the Moon and these resources are resolving the power problems back on planet Earth. Close to the end of his three year contract, Sam starts to see and experience strange occurrences which make him question his own sanity as well as making him question the company that he's working for...
Moon is one of those films that is full of intrigue and mystery early on and the isolated setting certainly lends it an air of claustrophobia. It does a good job of demonstrating how being isolated for a long period of time can drive a person crazy and it also does a good job of establishing an emotive core - the desire for Sam to get back home and see his family and the effect all of this has had on him mentally. All of this makes the first 30 minutes or so to be quite absorbing viewing, but it seemed to fall about slightly in the second half...
It's clear that once we get to the point of 'the accident' that director and writer Duncan Jones didn't really know what to do with the story and many of the scenes involving Sam and his doppleganger were repetitive and tedious and for the most part not particularly insightful. The presence of GERTY who is a super intelligent computer could have proved to be an interesting addition to the story, but Jones gives GERTY no discernible personality making many of the exchanges between Sam and GERTY feel rather dull - seriously would a bit of humour have hurt here??? Jones seems to dangle many carrots along the way here and one does feel that Jones is going to offer some kind of big pay-off for much of the boredom and tedium that has been offered up in Moon, but this simply doesn't happen.
Duncan Jones really owes a lot to Sam Rockwell here as it is his performance that just about keeps the picture above water. He's the heart and soul of the picture and it's a shame really that such a good performance is confined to such a dull film.
In some ways, Moon reminded me of both 2001; A Space Odyssey and Black Hole so if those sort of films are your bag then you may enjoy this film. However, for me I just found it a tad repetitive, tedious and aside from the first 30 minutes I found it rather boring and uninteresting.