Intriguing

Rating: Null/10 (30 October 2009)

I'll nail my colors to the mast right at the start by saying that I am a long time science fiction fan, so when a rare sci fi offering comes around - and they are few and far between - I'm predisposed to feel positively towards it. And whilst there have been some fairly lukewarm reviews for Moon, personally I really enjoyed it. The movie hinges on a really very good, very strong performance from Sam Rockwell as the 'hero' Sam Bell. It's a pity that sci fi very rarely gets recognized by the panels who select nominees for awards, because Rockwell's performance here is really outstanding. He IS the movie, it's nothing without him.
I last saw Rockwell in one of 2008's stranger offerings, Choke, the story of a guy who spends his days working in an historic re-enaction theme park, and his evenings pretending to choke in restaurants so that people will save him. He was also pretty good in Brad Pitt's recent Jesse James film. In Moon he simply IS the whole movie, and he is compelling to watch. Few other actors can command our attention in that way. I just find him an utterly believable actor.
The story is fairly standard sci fi fare, but enjoyable. The director successfully creates the feeling of claustrophobia that I can well imagine must exist in such a confined space as a space station. It's basically a movie about worker exploitation, hardly a new theme. Yet put in a new setting, it is fresh.
I must be getting old, but when I was a kid reading about astronauts living in space for months – or even years- on end, it was all just total fantasy. Now of course, with the international space station, we barely register anymore when a new crew blasts off, or someone returns after several months up there, in orbit above our heads. It is almost routine and we only seem to take much notice if something goes wrong. Has space travel lost its mystery and excitement, are we too jaded for a film like Moon? I hope not.