Moon (2009)

For more reasons than the obvious, Moon looks and feels like 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Outland (with a touch of Solaris). It is the most intelligent and realistic space movie to come along in years. Moon hauntingly depicts the isolated existence of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), two weeks from the end of a three-year contract as the solitary operator of an automated mining operation -- not just on the moon but on the dark side of the moon! To make matters even more lonely, because the mining corporation's communications satellite has been broken, video messages to and from Earth are relayed over the course of hours via Jupiter (or so he's told). Well, three years alone is a long time and Sam is beginning to see things -- until he has a face-to-face encounter he cannot ignore. What he ultimately discovers about the truth of his existence strips bare a psychological tightrope -- an unraveling skein that leads to multiple loose ends -- that is not as taut as Gattaca but certainly more visceral. The Houston Chronicle pronounced Moon "boring" but it is not entertainment like Die Hard, it is science fiction -- a speculative narrative about the what-ifs of technology as well as the human spirit: Why are we here? What can we accomplish? What will we leave behind as a personal legacy? For being the only person on the screen for 98% of the movie, Sam Rockwell carries the whole of Moon on his shoulders like Atlas. I found myself caring about what happens to him in every possible fashion. Kevin Spacey as the soporific voice of the mining base's computer, Gerty, gets a HAL-like moment with the words "I can only attest to what happens on the base" -- yet even this character evolves as it confronts reality and rethinks its loyalties. Moon has a lot of food for thought for those who are willing to explore its numerous implicit threads. 4 stars.