Moon is a 2009 film by Duncan Jones which follows a journey of a solitary man on the moon who is mining for helium-3. As he is getting close to ending his three year journey, he starts to experience a personal crisis. He is also with his robot GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Moon (2009) movie review
The entire movie is for the most part reliant on a performance by Sam Rockwell who plays Sam Bell. He is a solitary human who is alone and far away from Earth where his wife and a child reside. He starts being very level headed and rational person who understands his importance in the overall importance of the mission. As time passes, he starts to question everything from his sanity to his role in the entire operation.
With a budget of only $5 million, the director was able to accomplish a lot. The entire moon base was made on a giant 360-degree set. It measured 90 feet long (27 meters) and 70 feet wide (21 meters). In order to create the helium-3 harvesters and the lunar rovers, Jones seeked the help of Bill Pearson who was a supervising model maker for the Alien (1979) movie. Jones also incorporated his special effects background expertise in order to stay within budget.
During a screening of the movie for NASA, one of the people asked why the moon base looked so sturdy. The response was that in the future we want to use material around us to build bases. Rather than fly in the built bases as that would be too costly and pose a bunch of issues.
Since this was a one man show, Sam Rockwell’s role was exclusively written for him. He did a fantastic job in creating a character going through paranoia, abandonment, and overall a new exploration of his psyche. Sam plays a man that increasingly gets frustrated with what is happening around him. He is trying to play it cool as his life may as well depend on it. His interaction in his finite environment also looks great. The blend between practical effects and CGI never gets overwhelming and I had tough time distinguishing what was real and what was not. You really get to experience this claustrophobic and lonely feeling Sam is experiencing on his base. (BTW, this was Jones’ directorial debut)
On top of this, Rockwell’s character goes through a wide range of emotions that start from him being hopeful of seeing his family soon to feeling like he has lost everything that makes him question his overall existence as a cog in a giant machine. You never feel like the movie is dragging. This is a great testament to Rockwell’s acting ability and the director’s ability to make small actions highly meaningful.
Everything about this movie is great. The effects, the acting, the cinematography, and the overall quality of the movie stands out and shows what talent and small budget can really accomplish.
I recommend this movie for everyone. I think Jones has a great eye for detail and I hope he gets a lot more projects to work on in the near future. He is really good at what he does and has proven himself to be resourceful when he is faced with a limited budget.
Thanks for reading my Moon (2009) movie review
