Sometime in the future, nearly all of Earth's energy is provided by mining on the moon. Sam Bell (Rockwell) is an astronaut maintaining the mining operation on a three year mission, his only companion being the station's computer GERTY (voiced by Spacey).
The story opens up as the three long years are almost over. As his lonely stint on the moon draws to a close, however, Sam begins doubting reality as he begins seeing things that are not there. The last straw comes in the form of an astronaut he rescues from near death out on the Moon's surface. For all he can tell, this mysterious stranger is Sam himself.
The "big reveal" comes along rather early in the film and it's hard to discuss anything further without giving away the majority of the meat this film has to over. What follows is a psychological drama with some science fiction thriller mixed in and a whole lot of moral and ethical food for thought.
Moon is on the shorter end in terms of length, which works to its advantage, not allowing too much time for the tediousness a solitary lunar life is sure to bring. Rockwell plays his parts, both of them, quite well, although there were a couple times he seemed a little too emotionless for what was happening. Spacey portrays the computer GERTY in a rather surprisingly likable manner and feels like a real character in this sparsely inhabited story.
Moon doesn't really offer anything new in terms of idea or story, but it presents it in a fresh and enjoyable way, and I was somewhat surprised with part of the ending, which was actually pretty satisfying for a nice change.
If you want to be reminded of a time science fiction didn't mean Michael Bay and CG, this is a great original nugget in a big bucket of manufactured Hollywood crap.
**** (4/5 stars)
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