MOON - Little Zowie Bowie Grows Up

MOON is an indie Sci-Fi film directed by Duncan Jones. Jones is David Bowie's son, and was born Zowie Bowie. He smartly changed his name, which probably resulted in a lot more people taking him seriously (he had the double whammy of a famous last name and a ridiculous, rhymey first name).

Like DISTRICT 9, MOON Is a smart, small film.

SPOILERS FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON BELOW



















It tells the tale of astronaut Sam Bell, who works alone on a base on the dark side of the moon, overseeing Helium-3 harvesting. Nearing the end of a three-year contract and getting ready to return to earth to his wife and young daughter, Sam's going a little stir crazy. He has no one to talk to except a Hal-like robot, Gerty, nicely voiced by Kevin Spacey. And he starts seeing things. After crashing a moon rover, Sam wakes up with some gaps in his memory and Gerty acting strangely. Although the moonbase's antenna is supposedly broken, he catches Gerty having a live conversation with earth. And Gerty's under strict orders to keep Sam inside.

Sam finagles his way outside and to the crashed rover, where he finds himself still injured inside the vehicle. He brings himself back to the moonbase and things start getting weirder from there. Eventually, injured Sam and a younger, angrier Sam discover that the base is surrounded by jamming antennae blocking their live communications signals from getting back to earth. Sam also discovers that the "return vehicle" set to bring him back home at the end of his contract is an incinerator. That his body starts to decompose after three years. That he and the other Sam are clones. That there's a whole secret room filled with hundreds of other, non-activated clones. And that this whole process has been repeated over and over again for decades.

Sam manages to escape back to earth by sacrificing a version of himself in the crashed rover to confuse a "rescue" mission and then hiding out in a Helium-3 launch vehicle.

The whole thing is done rather subtly and creepily, playing out slowly. There are some nice moments, such as Gerty helping Sam out by giving him the password to his video log (so he can see that this process has happened again and again), and Sam and Sam getting into a violent fight.

There's really only one misstep in the entire film and that's at the very end. We're given snatches of voiceover dialogue as Sam's launch vehicle enters earth atmosphere; they explain that one of his clones is testifying against the corporation that hired/imprisoned him. Then there's a snatch of radio talk show call-in dialogue, I guess meant to be a joke, in which a caller says that the clone Sam is either a liar or an illegal alien. Not only is this unnecessary, but it's out of character with the rest of the film. And since it's the very last thing we hear, it has the effect of like dining out at a fancy, wonderful French restaurant, and finishing off your meal of endive salad, foie gras, boeuf bourginon, and tarte tatin with an undercooked McDonald's cheeseburger.

But it's not enough to ruin the movie. It just shouldn't be in there.

And Sam Rockwell proves he's an awesome actor, too. In case anyone still doubted that.