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Moon (2009, Duncan Jones)
Amazing how a viewer can be captivated by a movie with very little action in it. Moon takes a page from 2001: ASO, Solaris, Alien, and Silent Running, all of which are brilliant science fiction films with an objective of thrilling with ideas rather than intricate action sequences ala Star Wars. Avatar got all the hype in 2009, but was a failure of a film... failure if movies should be good and not sucky. A couple years ago there was a nice little sci-fi flick from Danny Boyle called Sunshine, that started off remarkably but fizzled into cliche' suspense and filth.
Moon is a film that is good from start to finish with very few wasted moments. Every image bursting from the screen is pure gold. Moon is largely a one man show with lead actor Sam Rockwell playing a scientist on a three year contract to operate a moon station. The moon station is the command center for a mining operation extracting helium-3 which presumably solves Earth's energy crisis. GERTY, Sam's only companion is a AI program, that resembles Hal-9000, but certainly doesn't copy him. I admire the way the story went with this relationship between man and his computer.
The slow revolation the viewer sees coming, but it's amazing and the predictability of the situation added dread for me as opposed to boredom. Minimal is the way the filmmakers went with this film. There is more cerebral matter in this film than most science-fiction pieces today. Of course while Moon is true science fiction, a flick like Avatar is not science fiction. The backdrop may be sci-fi but the spirit of the film certainly is not.
Watch Moon in a big dark room on a big bright screen with a nice cup of coffee and no distractions... soak it in. One of the best films of 2009, likely the best sci-fi of the year, and viewed from a certain perspective it is probably the year's best horror film.
Grade: A
Amazing how a viewer can be captivated by a movie with very little action in it. Moon takes a page from 2001: ASO, Solaris, Alien, and Silent Running, all of which are brilliant science fiction films with an objective of thrilling with ideas rather than intricate action sequences ala Star Wars. Avatar got all the hype in 2009, but was a failure of a film... failure if movies should be good and not sucky. A couple years ago there was a nice little sci-fi flick from Danny Boyle called Sunshine, that started off remarkably but fizzled into cliche' suspense and filth.
Moon is a film that is good from start to finish with very few wasted moments. Every image bursting from the screen is pure gold. Moon is largely a one man show with lead actor Sam Rockwell playing a scientist on a three year contract to operate a moon station. The moon station is the command center for a mining operation extracting helium-3 which presumably solves Earth's energy crisis. GERTY, Sam's only companion is a AI program, that resembles Hal-9000, but certainly doesn't copy him. I admire the way the story went with this relationship between man and his computer.
The slow revolation the viewer sees coming, but it's amazing and the predictability of the situation added dread for me as opposed to boredom. Minimal is the way the filmmakers went with this film. There is more cerebral matter in this film than most science-fiction pieces today. Of course while Moon is true science fiction, a flick like Avatar is not science fiction. The backdrop may be sci-fi but the spirit of the film certainly is not.
Watch Moon in a big dark room on a big bright screen with a nice cup of coffee and no distractions... soak it in. One of the best films of 2009, likely the best sci-fi of the year, and viewed from a certain perspective it is probably the year's best horror film.
Grade: A