Moon (15)

Alison Rowat's Review

Here’s a pleasant midsummer surprise for anyone tired of taking two aspirin after hitting the wall of noise and special effects that often passes for science fiction today.

Duncan Jones’s feature debut is a gentle, thoughtful affair, a return to a time when science fiction set out to intrigue rather than induce migraines.

Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) plays Sam, an engineer who has been working on the far side of the Moon for three years, mining energy for the Earth’s needs.

He has been alone all this time, save for telemessages from home and conversations with the space station’s HAL-like robot (voiced by a suitably creepy sounding Kevin Spacey).

With two weeks to go till the contract is over, and with his sanity just about holding out, now is not the time for weird occurrences, unexpected visitors, or for his bosses to start giving him grief, but those are the hands Sam is about to be dealt.

Moon has a lot of big ideas bubbling away under the surface about identity and belonging, but at base it’s the tale of one blue collar guy raging against the corporate machine.

The elegantly crumpled Rockwell is excellent as a 21st century Willy Loman in a spacesuit – but this is one working stiff who is not ready to give in just yet.

Technically adept, skilfully paced and ultimately thrilling, Moon, shot for just £5 million, is a heartening example of what British film can do when it eschews the traditional, easy options of faux Loachian grit or costume romps.

Jones, perhaps best known ’til now as the son of David Bowie, has arrived as a force of natural talent in his own right.

Paul Greenwood's Review

Duncan Jones, the artist formerly known as Zowie Bowie, makes his feature debut with Moon, a deceptively simple science fiction drama with a very 1970s feel.

It's set in the not too distant future, when earth's energy needs are harvested on the moon from the power of the sun. Manning the moon-base alone is Sam (Sam Rockwell) who, with two weeks left on his three year tour, is being plagued by hallucinations and system malfunctions, and there's every chance he's starting to go a little bit insane.

When he has an accident out on the surface, he returns to the base but then later discovers what appears to be himself still inside the module.

What could be a bog-standard Star Trek episode is elevated into an intriguing and consistently engaging film thanks to a sensational and complex performance from Rockwell.

He's the only actor on screen for the entirety of the film and he commands the attention throughout while being funny, frightening and always convincing, particularly when he has to portray two different versions of the same person.

With its sparse, white sets and a HAL-like computer (voiced by Kevin Spacey) that pretty much controls the base, Moon's influences are proudly displayed, and in tackling the ethical implications of cloning it manages to be both challenging and thrilling.