Sunday, January 31, 2010

Moon

This must be my week for low-budget, small-cast movies. Moon stars Sam Rockwell and, well, Sam Rockwell. That is, unless you count Kevin Spacey as the voice of Gerty, the computer. The setting is a moon base where Rockwell is the sole inhabitant. He thinks. He's there on a three-year contract to maintain the base and send Helium-3, whatever that is, back to earth to supply just about all the power that humanity needs.

But things happen. Rockwell is injured, and when he wakes up, well, I probably shouldn't say. In fact, anything else I tell about the plot would pretty much spoil it for you, so I'll just say nothing.

What I will say is that this is an SF movie with no explosions, no aliens, no monsters. There is, however, an evil corporation. Is there any other kind? I eagerly await a good SF movie about a beneficent corporation. Where was I? Oh, right. It's a very quiet movie that has some interesting points to make about identity and what it is to be human. Rockwell has a big load to carry, and he does a fine job. I can see why he'd want to make the film. And Kevin Spacey gives great voice. Check it out.

6 comments:

Todd Mason said...

I fell asleep in the theater. I hate cute robots. And it borrows heavily from bad movies, such as SILENT RUNNING. But I tire of raining on other peoples' parades about this, which as I see it does an almost good job of showing us a mining operation on the Moon (except there's no reason, none, for the EEEeeeVull Corporation to have a human there, let alone a BIG SPOILER

an apparently illegal clone slave and his fellows


NO MORE SPOILER
and has one good joke by me, that Rockwell's character lives the life of a perpetually adolescent stoner in the equivalent basement of his parents' house, watching the equivalent of '70s UHF tv repeats or Nick At Nite or TV Land since, eating tv dinners, etc.

I agree Rockwell did as well as one could with the material, but the script is no PERSONA, nor even the remake of SOLARIS, much less the original.

Hmm, maybe I'm not as tired as I thought. But it irks me how much of a pass this one seems to be getting for being less stupid than TRANSFORMERS and such, actually having the potential to be and the trappings of a serious film.

Unknown said...

Judy found it boring. I was reminded of Silent Running, all right. I haven't seen Transformers.

Todd Mason said...

You don't need to see TRANSFORMER, Bill...even the remarkable effects are dull, from the five minutes of someone else's rental I could stand (she fell asleep about twenty minutes in), and I'm sure any ogling you'd need to do of Megan Fox (who still strikes me as smarter--from evidence of interviews--than actually sexy, as opposed to blandly pretty)(she's no Famke Janssen, let's put it, nor even, from her age cohort, Anne Hathaway) can be done in less painful circumstances.

wv: foollo

Lawrence Person said...

If you're looking for good low-budget SF films with small casts, I recommend Primer.

Unknown said...

Sounds interesting, all right.

Stephen B. said...

Interesting film! Plus, Sting's wife helped produce, and Zowie Bowie is the writer (he's David Bowie's son - aka Duncan Jones). Talent!