Movie Review: Moon (2009)

When you're roughly 240 000 miles away from Earth, stationed on or near the Moon, this is neither the time nor place to have a personal crisis!

Especially when you're out there ALONE...

Well, not exactly alone - but with your only "friend," a machine called GERTY.

Again, when you're isolated and hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth, it's a really sound idea to refrain from experiencing any sort of personal crises.

Except THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT SAM BELL DOES in "Moon" (2009).

Stationed on lunar base, SARANG, Sam Bell has been on the Moon, working for Lunar Industries for 3 years. Having left his wife, Tess, behind, and Tess being pregnant at the time of his departure into outer space, Sam Bell is anxiously awaiting his return to Earth. He'd sure like to see his daughter, Eve, in person - so he's happy to be on his last two weeks of contract work with Lunar Industries.

This is the scenario viewers come to quickly understand as the movie begins.

Now if you've seen the sort of "stark" vacant sort of "devoid-of-normalcy-in-outer-space" sets in most space-related movies, you'll see a similar sort of set here - but don't be expecting some sort of "space disaster" experience right away...

At the same time, too - don't expect aliens, E.T. creatures, Robotic monsters or robots-gone-berserk to show up here... to ruin Sam Bell's plan to return to Earth, home and family.

I assure you - none of the above entities will appear...

The things that happen to Sam Bell are much, MUCH worse than aliens with acid for blood and jaws that project 4 feet in .02 seconds... and the really, REALLY BAD stuff happens primarily in Sam Bell's completely SANE mind.

That's right... Sam Bell doesn't exactly "lose it" in the way you'd expect, either, from an isolated persona in a space movie.

There's no out of control "cabin fever" or isolation sickness - believe me, it's worse, the stuff that happens to Sam. Besides, wouldn't that be boring and old - haven't you seen that kind of psychotic break stuff as a standard in deep space and deap sea genre movies a hundred times already?

Trust me - no aliens, blood, guts and gore effects are here - no insanity going on either - but if you have even a shred of empathy in you, then you will be far from disappointed over this space movie and you will literally FEAR FOR SAM's safety, future - and sanity.

Sam Rockwell is an American actor, born in Daly City, California, U.S.A., on November 5, 1968). He grew up primarily in San Francisco with his dad (parents divorced when Sam was 5), actor Peter Rockwell, while his mother, Penny Hess, stayed in New York to further her acting career.

First acting gig, at age 10. He played Humphrey Bogart, along side his mother, in an improvisational comedy sketch produced by a group known as the East Village.

First film role: 1989, in Horror genre film, Clownhouse.

Sam had several guest roles on shows like NYPD Blue, Law & Order, The Equalizer before firmly establishing himself as a serious actor who could take on more significant roles.

Significant roles in 1996 film, Box of Moon Light, 1997's Lawn Dogs, and probably his most successful role was in a 1999 film based on a Stephen King novel called The Green Mile.

In The Green Mile, Sam played an immoral, rowdy, uncouth child murderer named William "Wild Bill" Wharton who ends up in prison in the area known to keep lifers who are headed for The Green Mile.

The rest of Sam's bio and film details can be found at imdb

Sam Rockewell at The Internet Movie Data Base