Movie of the Week: Moon

Sam Rockwell shines as much as Duncan Jones’ eerie and ambitious “Moon,” a thinking man’s sci-fi piece that also features the perfect-pitch casting of Kevin Spacey as the voice of a computer named GERTY.

Debut helmer Jones, the son of Davie Bowie, obviously breathed in some of dear ol’ dad’s, uh, stardust, in directing his story of a man (Sam Bell, played by Rockwell) left in space too long for anyone’s good.

It’s been three years since Sam, working alone at a Moon mining station, has seen his wife and baby daughter, and the bats in the ol’ Bell tower are starting to get to him. GERTY, meanwhile, is irritating our hero, too, and maybe purposely so?

Sam Rockwell and Dominique McElligott star in "Moon."

You certainly won’t find out the answer here, but one of the neat things about this first-time screenplay from Nathan Parker is that nothing really goes the way one expects it will. No, its problems all have to do with logic and plot holes and questions lingering well beyond viewing.

Of course, that we’re even remembering anything about it a day or two later is a plus, especially during this or any other movie summer.

The lunar landscape of "Moon."

Well, anyway, two weeks before he’s scheduled to go home, Sam knocks himself out during a routine Moon drive and can’t remember much about his accident. To keep peace with readers who don’t like reviewers giving away too much of a good thing, that’s about all anyone needs to know. Except to say that everyman Rockwell truly gets a chance to own the screen. (His character is the only one not viewed through some sort of lunar video technology, though most will recognize Mary Tyler Moore somewhere in the proceedings.)

And you won’t even have to appreciate her spunk.

Rated: R
Stars: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott, Mary Tyler Moore
Director: Duncan Jones

Studio/Official Site: http://www.sonypictures.com/classics/moon/

[John M. Urbancich has been reviewing movies and writing film features and celebrity profiles at Cleveland's Sun Newspapers for 25 years. As a longtime member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, his work has been appearing on the Sun News website for more than a decade. John also regularly updates his own site at www.JMuvies.com]