Moon (2009)

Sam Bell: Listen, why don't you relax. Why don't you take a pill, bake a cake, go read the encyclopedia.

Moon is the directorial debut for Duncan Jones, a British film maker.  It is an independent film about Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) who works for Lunar Industries running a mining station on the moon.  He is the only human there with GERTY the robot (Kevin Spacey) as his only companion.  He is contracted for a 3 year shift, with the movie primarily focusing on the last 2 weeks.  Communication is limited due to satellite problems and the companies lack if interest in fixing it.

So when I read about this movie the first thing that I thought of was 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Now I liked that movie, but it did drag and get boring at parts.  Watching one guy go through his day is not an appealing prospect for most people.  And so Moon starts and we watch Sam eat, drink, shave, etc...  Then he goes out and crashes his moon rover/truck thing.  And then he seems to go crazy.  From here the movie gets really interesting and I was glad I dealt with the 20 minutes of watch Sam eat.  Watch Sam drink. Watch Sam become really interesting.  For a movie with really only 2 actors for 95% of the film, it was really good.  He starts going crazy and getting paranoid, then finds out that he's a clone.  The pacing was good, interaction between the two Sam's was good, and the story was pretty good.  I must admit the only thing that got my attention to this flick at first was the fact that Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey stared in an independent low budget movie, especially after Sam just finished Iron Man 2.  I had to watch it.  And I'm glad I did.  It is nothing spectacular, it does not redefine anything or make one sit back and contemplate the universe.  It's just entertaining.

So I give this a solid 4 out of 5 stars.  It's interesting and you won't be left feeling that you want your hour and a half back.
Moon at IMDB