It feels like a "moon" trip we've taken before in better films but Sam Rockwell is brilliant in a tour-de-force performance.
Moon (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:158
Fresh:141
Rotten:17
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: Boosted by Sam Rockwell's intense performance, Moon is a compelling work of science-fiction, and a promising debut from director Duncan Jones.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language.
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Jun 12, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $4,785,434
Synopsis:
It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a...
It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth’s primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job, made harder by a broken satellite that allows no live communications home. Taped messages are all Sam can send and receive.
Thankfully, his time on the moon is nearly over, and Sam will be reunited with his wife, Tess, and their three-year-old daughter, Eve, in only a few short weeks. Finally, he will leave the isolation of “Sarang,” the moon base that has been his home for so long, and he will finally have someone to talk to beyond “Gerty,” the base’s well-intentioned, but rather uncomplicated computer.
Suddenly, Sam’s health starts to deteriorate. Painful headaches, hallucinations and a lack of focus lead to an almost fatal accident on a routine drive on the moon in a lunar rover. While recuperating back at the base (with no memory of how he got there), Sam meets a younger, angrier version of himself, who claims to be there to fulfill the same three year contract Sam started all those years ago.
Confined with what appears to be a clone of his earlier self, and with a “support crew” on its way to help put the base back into productive order, Sam is fighting the clock to discover what’s going on and where he fits into company plans. --© Sony Pictures Classics
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey
Director: Duncan Jones
Director: Duncan Jones
Screenwriter: Mark Bowden, Nathaniel Parker
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
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Reviews for Moon
Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie (nee David Jones), makes his feature debut with a calling card that shows his potential as a filmmaker.
A compelling low-budget sci-fi drama about a lonely astronaut on the moon who faces one conundrum after another as he tries to cope with the changes in his life and destiny.
...either an over-extended or under developed treatment of a good idea. There's not enough there there to make "Moon" an exceptional genre piece.
Director Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie), working from a script by Nathan Parker, pulls off sci-fi miracles on a $5 million shoestring. Moon is a potent provocation that relies on ideas instead of computer tricks to stir up excitement.
Moon is enjoyable as much for its small scale and solid execution as for its crazy twists and creeping existential dread.
[Duncan Jones] sets out to reclaim the humanity in a genre that's been overtaken by special effects and the opportunity to spin-off toys and videogames. He succeeds.
An intellectual sci-fi tale that unabashedly takes its inspiration from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Unfortunately, it resembles the Kubrick masterpiece less than an episode of The Outer Limits.
By film's end, it feels like you've been talking to the same robot as always.
Moon really gets under the skin as it probes the nature of humanity while keeping us on the edge of our seats.
Moon is the first feature to be directed by Duncan Jones, who is David Bowie's son, and he brings it a grimy industrial look, as well as witty touches like giving Gerty a smiley-face screen that changes expression in tandem with Spacey's voice.
Though there is a considerable gap between his level of ambition and execution, Jones deserves credit for making an intelligent sci-fi that respects the genre's conventions (and limitations) and doesn't rely much on f/x.
You’ve rarely seen so many influences assimilated as smoothly or affectionately as they are here, and for a good portion of its running time, Moon casts a spell in spite of its self-consciousness.
The whole film feels like a throwback to classic sci-fi films (think 2001, Blade Runner), days that didn’t rely so much on CGI but on good old-fashioned and clammy human panic.
Impressively pulled together on a modest budget, Moon has a strong lead and a valid philosophical premise but, despite Bell's fissured psyche, the drama is inert. Ground control to Major Tom: Moon orbits an idea, but it doesn't go anywhere.
The intelligence and care with which the movie was produced makes the script's minor deficiencies stand out in contrast, but on the whole, Moon is the sort of trippy sci-fi dystopia that's best enjoyed on the big screen.
Evocative, riveting, and ultimately contemporary in a roundabout way, Moon is a superb mood piece, sublimely cradled by Jones, filtered through tireless work from star Sam Rockwell.
Latest News for Moon
December 04, 2009:
Sundance 2010: RT's 10 Most Anticipated Movies
Five or six years ago, the Sundance Film Festival was more famous for showing dozens of worthy, politically correct movies that instantly disappeared than the odd breakout hits... More...
November 27, 2009:
Duncan Jones Reteams With Kevin Spacey
'Moon' director Duncan Jones and the movie's computer voice, Kevin Spacey, have reteamed for a couple of advertisements currently airing on British TV. The commercials, embedded... More...
October 08, 2009:
Duncan Jones talks Moon, Sam Rockwell, and Mute
Space. Once film's final frontier, over the years sci-fi has sometimes been the domain of cliche and inferior riffs on past glories. All the more surprising, then, to discover a... More...
September 15, 2009:
Concept Art for Moon Director Duncan Jones' Mute ![]()
Director Duncan Jones, whose Moon has gone down as one of the finest sci-fi films of the year, has posted concept art for his next film, a thriller entitled Mute. Like Blade... More...
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 83% 83% | The Princess and the Frog | 12/11 |
| 89% 89% | A Single Man | 12/11 |
| 57% 57% | The Lovely Bones | 12/11 |
| 90% 90% | Invictus | 12/11 |
| | Avatar | 12/18 |
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