jayarava

Don't get me wrong - this is a good movie in many ways. The special effects are great, it is grittily realistic, mostly good acting especially from the main character, yadda yadda. The semi documentary thing works well enough, and blends OK with the 'real' action. But in many respects it is quite predictable and not saying much that we don't already know. Indeed in many ways it is rehearsing some well worn clichés about how we react to outsiders. Worse it seems to fall back on Hollywood formulae towards the end - references to every American Marine movie may well have been unintentional I suppose, but at one point I was also thinking of ET.

It's a difficult movie from the point of view of the shear number of murders and vapourisations that occur - it must be well over 100. It means I left the theatre feeling more numb than anything else - other emotions regarding the ending (which I anxious not to give away) were drowned out by the gunfire and flying blood. The film showcases the emotion of anger, hard and bitter anger. Ironically the callousness of some of the characters must be fostered by a movie which numbs us to the reality of violence, so in a sense the movie is participating in the problem rather than offering a vision of another way of doing things.

I think we have to treat this movie as entertainment of the gruesome kind (that I associate with Peter Jackson), certainly not a horror film, though horrific in parts; but we should not treat it as saying anything new or insightful about prejudice because it doesn't. And what it does say is not at all subtle - perhaps this was the point, but I'm not sure anyone on the wrong end of a bludgeon was ever truly convinced of anything - isn't this what the story of South Africa has really shown us? So why bludgeon us with a film?

'Moon' represents a very successful return to sci-fi as those of us who *read* sci-fi understand it. There are no monsters, no disembowelling, no gratuitous sex, no car chase equivalents. What's more it's an original story, rather than yet another poor adaptation of a sci-fi novel! There is simply one man in extreme and somewhat inhuman circumstances trying to understand what it means to be human. There is no attempt to shock or revolt us just to get a reaction, instead we are treated as intelligent and discerning viewers with the ability to reflect on what we are seeing and our own responses to things.

The film moves slowly in a way that invokes '2001'. There is time to be thoughtful, which some viewers seem to find "boring". It is a reminder that once upon a time films did not flicker by with epilepsy inducing rapidity, bombarding us with light and sound and action until thinking is not even an option. 2001 is invoked in other ways as well but Jones decides not to follow the masses down the well worn road, but cuts a new path that is quite a delight. There is plenty of time to experience your own reactions to the dilemma which is quite rare in sci-fi movies.

Moon raises serious grown-up issues and leaves you to decide what to do about them. It's not a polarised good/evil, light/dark kind of Hollywood movie - it is about a subtle moral issue, and again this seems to leave some viewers confused and flailing.

Sam Rockwell is a credible actor, and some of the special effects (again muted and fully in context rather than the usual blare) are really very clever. As the truth dawned it occurred to me that Duncan Jones is a talented writer and director, and that I can hardly wait to see what comes next. Let's hope he's not a one hit wonder as I really want to see more of this kind of thing!