Cerebral exercise with a twist

Rating: 4/10 (13 January 2013)

Stylistically, MOON owes a great debt to the likes of SOLARIS, SILENT RUNNING and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, all films exploring astronauts trapped in a self-made prison in space and suffering the extremes of loneliness. The difference is, while those films were new and thought-provoking at the time, MOON fails to offer much in the way of originality for the modern age.
Critics lauded it, praising a film which eschews action and incident in favour of deep-rooted themes and an exploration of the human condition. However, I just found it boring. The storyline is unengaging and the material is spread way too thinly over the running time. There just isn't enough substance, enough to make me care about the central character's plight or the twists that are gradually unveiled.
I've never been a fan of Sam Rockwell, and his performance here hasn't changed that. MOON deserves to be good for its different-to-the-norm premise, but for a film so singularly lacking in thrills, incident, suspense or, indeed, drama, I wondered at the end why I'd bothered watching it.