MOON 3.0*** (almost 3.5***) What a nice surprise to stumble upon a riveting, independent, Sci-Fi film that ,for a change, doesn’t have any aliens or razzle-dazzle space travel and battles. Instead, we have a story with a single focus that manages to capture major emotional themes very successfully.

“Moon” is seemingly a one-man show featuring Sam Rockwell as astronaut, Sam Bell, who was sent to the moon alone on a three-year contract to maintain a mining station that harvests the sun's fusion energy from moon rocks.. With only two weeks left of his three year contract, Sam can't wait to return to Earth to reunite with his wife and almost 3 yr. old daughter whom he has never seen in real life. But the mind-numbing isolation and utter lack of human contact has already taken its toll on Sam and bizarre visions and troubled dreams disrupt him and the efficiency of his work. Strange occurrences with the communications system and somewhat unusual behavior from his computer companion GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) make Sam more uneasy. GERTY is far more user-friendly than was “2001’s’ HAL 9000 Instead of manifesting as a baleful red eye like HAL, GERTY shows up literally with a yellow smiley face on his screen that occasionally turns into a frowny face or even a cryey face…it’s the faces we’ve all become familiar with. But it works and is one of many examples of the filmmakers´ ability to make a virtue out of a low budget film.

After a perilous accident with one of the excavation units, he awakens to find that he may no longer be alone in the mining facility…also quite unexpected things are happening and he begins to make a series of discoveries that change his understanding of his job, his life, the universe and everything.

“Moon” explores the very heart of science-fiction through worthy themes, many of which are plausible in the future while managing to stay away from the more outlandish subjects. There are no aliens or heavily armed spaceships, no time travel, warp drive, black holes, or wizened green men who tutor in ancient sorcerer's ways. Instead, the ideas of isolation, loneliness, the value of human life, productivity, artificial intelligence, and cold corporate business practices are examined. In other words No Star Child. No ultimate trip. No jive-talking robots. Just good old-fashioned sci-fi story-telling.

NOTE: Inexplicably this movie was given an “R” rating…the only possible reason would be because it had a couple of “F” words…there is no violence, no sex and no horror…. compared to so many others with far worse that got a “PG-12”, this is NOT an “R” movie.