Moon

Last night the wife and I watched a movie that I was somewhat excited to see. The movie was Moon, a (supposedly) thinking man's sci fi with a (supposedly) interesting plot twist. I hated this movie. I was physically angry after watching this movie. I normally find it hard to hate a movie that is well acted. Not so with Moon. Moon has almost no story. It's almost as if the director pitched an interesting idea and the producers decided that, in order to save money, they would forgo an actual script and have Sam Rockwell interpret the director's original pitch off the cuff. Rockwell was brilliant, but not brilliant enough to make up for the pathetic utterly underdeveloped story. The movie has no prelude and no viable conclusion. Moon is essentially sci fi Castaway except Tom Hanks' character has been changed to a legion of clones marooned on the moon instead of an uninhabited island. And instead of befriending a volleyball, the clones befriend HAL from 2001, except HAL has been given a face and some Prozac. In Castaway you are shown not only how Tom Hanks gets to the island, but how he gets off and subsequently reconnects with those closest to him. In contrast, Moon never establishes how the clones got to the moon, and when one of the clones manages to leave the movie abruptly ends. I suppose that if questioned the director would say that the lack of a prelude and conclusion are irrelevant and that the movie is more about ideas than story. To me, that's nonsense. If I want to be presented with ideas I'll read an essay. Movies are supposed to have a story with an ending. If, as it seems, the director's intention was to have me choose the lady or the tiger at the end of the film, I want him to know I chose disgust.