This is a difficult movie to review without giving away a couple of hints of the plot – so beware of some small spoilers.

Just like when I watched Prospect, I wanted a slower-paced movie to put on while I was doing things with my hands, so I looked for another character-focused low-budget sci-fi project. And while Moon ticks all those boxes, it struggled a bit more to convince me. 

The ‘lone crew member on the base/ship’ has been done to death in sci-fi, but it is a trope for a reason: loneliness and fear are powerful emotions. It is also perfect for smaller projects like Moon, because it requires a little less of everything to still have an impact: fewer actors, fewer sets, fewer props.

The problem with stories with this premise having been done so often, is that they start falling into a predictable pattern. I understand there are a couple of deliberate references and throwbacks to other sci-fi movies in here – I feel a lot of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and The Martian in particular – but showing a sci-fi literate audience that you know you’re following in others’ footsteps does not make your movie any more original. A movie about the loneliness of survival in space needs a little extra to make me feel it is worth watching.

In Moon, I get the feeling that the interesting idea to have the main character appear on screen twice is supposed to be that ‘little extra’.

This script might have been written as an acting challenge for Sam Rockwell – he does all of his acting in this movie opposite a video, a prop, or, indeed, himself. Considering, he did a good job and I get that people are impressed with that. But I don’t think it was an Oscar-worthy performance. It is possible another actor could have carried this movie on their own, but Rockwell didn’t draw me in that way.

Because the focus is on Rockwell acting opposite himself, the main mystery of the movie (relatively predictable as it is) is actually revealed rather early on, breaking the tension arc and making the second half of the movie feel like an afterthought.

It is made worse by the fact that the plot is a big tangle of assumptions and just-so stories causing everything to function exactly as the plot demands.

It never made sense to me why Sam Bell had to be at the base in the first place, why he was there alone, why communications with the moon were so difficult, or why Lunar Industries when with the convoluted ploy/deception that is at the core of the lot in the first place.

I could go on, but the bottom line is that this movie was never about the plot. That could be fine, but in this case it left precious basically just Rockwell’s acting as a selling point – and nice as it is, it feels a little meagre.

In conclusion, this movie does some interesting things and looks convincing, but the premise is rather bland and the plot makes no sense. All the interestingness of Sam Rockwell talking to himself could not make up for the fact that Moon was just not that exciting.

If you want to watch a sci-fi movie that is all about intense acting over flashy action, I would rather recommend something like Ex Machina.

You won’t waste an evening if you put on Moon, but I feel like there are better options out there.