While Duncan Jones' first full-length film seems to mimic 2001's iconic HAL 9000 with Kevin Spacey's artificial intelligence character Gerty, this chilling science-fiction centers on Astronaut Sam Bells (Sam Rockwell). These are the final weeks of his three-year moon mission to help restore Earth's dwindling energy resources. While everything is becoming routine to the Bell, the communication with his family is not enough to curb his loneliness. But Sam quickly learns that all is not what it seems, and things start to take a turn for the worse before he realizes what is happening.
As we get comfortable with Bell's character mission, we learn that he has a loving wife and daughter waiting eagerly on his home arrival. He's able to communicate with them through a live connection, but the live feed reports late coincidentally throughout the time frame of this movie. Sam's mind begins to wander from his main objectives, a reasonable trait for someone who's been stuck in a metal can for nearly three years. As such, he crashes his lunar rover while out on a mission and danger quickly escalates from this point forward. The accident renders Bell useless and leaves him unconscious for a significant amount of time. When he awakens, Gerty is the first voice that he hears. At this point in the storyline, the assistant computer system shows signs of deceit, a characteristic that clearly shows its human capabilities.
Match Jones' poignant writing style with the brilliant visual setting of the lunar ship and you get quite an emotional experience. It's no surprise, as Duncan is the son of musician David Bowie, so the creativity seems biological. While Moon may not encompass the horror that films like 1997's Event Horizon boast, the movie does leave the viewer with an intimidating presentation of a possible future scenario.
Rating: 82/100
