Movie Appraisal: Moon (2009)

Moon, directed by Duncan Jones, is a film I've wanted to see for a good long while. And now that I have seen it, I must admit that it's been worth the long wait. I don't know how much I consider this a horror film, even if it does have elements of horror, including gore, tension, claustrophobia, and ultimately death. I think I could put it into that genre of space horror, so often maligned and so often incredible. I can see it in the same genre as smart space movies like Sunshine, and maybe that is where it aptly should sit forever as an idol to what space movies can and have achieved.

Again, I'm not sure how horrific this movie is or how well it would fit in a horror review month, but I think that enough elements are there that if somebody complains I can defend myself by saying, "Look, idiot, this is my review month. I thought this was tense and creepy at times. It could be pretty scary if you look at it the right way. So, deal with it, fool."

This, ultimately, is a movie about love, loss, drama, tension, clones, capitalism, the horror of losing oneself and one's mind, and psychology. There is radiation sickness, seeing what you used to be laid bare, seeing lies and knowing you're powerless, and the moon, always the moon, featured.

M-O-O-N that spells Moon, a movie about a man working on a space station on the far side of the moon, mining helium-3 and mainly being there to oversee the big machines that mine it. He is alone for three long years and starts losing it little by little. Then one day, when he is only two weeks from leaving the moon base, he gets into an accident and wakes up with no memory of what happened. Kind of.

You see, this is where the early twist comes into play. The man who wakes up is not the Sam Bell we started the movie with, but rather a clone, woken up because the other one was "lost." This new clone feels that something's wrong and goes to find what's up only to find the earlier Sam still crashed in the lunar vehicle. He saves him, brings him back, and they learn from each other and figure out a plan to do something memorable.

I don't want to say much more about the plot. It's incredible and worth the watch, even absolutely worth the watch. If there's a single film about space you should watch in your life, it should be this one, absolutely this one, even over 2001: A Space Odyssey. The movie is poignant at times, showing that love is something beyond the mortal bounds, showing that there is more petty evil that humans are capable of than there are stars in the sky. And yet there is also heroism, caring, and again, that love that so often drives us to do stupid things.

The story is meticulously pointed out and paced, so much so that it is as close to perfect as a story can possibly be. It's very tight at times, but it does what it needs to do to tell the most convincing story possible. This is a memorable film, and one I certainly will never forget. I put it up there with Ink as one of the most affecting standalone movies I can think of. It's a bit of a life-changing movie, but one without the great punch of an ending I really wish it would have.

Sam Rockwell shines in his role as Sam Bell, as does Kevin Spacey as GERTY, the AI companion to Sam that seems to know much more than he tells and is much less malicious than HAL, even though the comparisons are certainly apt. Both actors do a great job in being their characters absolutely. Sam Rockwell plays several clones of his own character. His portrayals of the two main Sams is actually incredible, showing both as physically and mentally very different and yet fundamentally the same.

I really want to mention the subtle love story this movie has in it. I don't usually like love stories all that much, but the tragic ones often hit me rather hard, even though the ones with happy endings rarely do anything to me at all. The tragedy here is palpable, nearly breaking one of the Sams, who had waited for three years to go back and be with the woman he loves. The love between Sam and  Tess is absolutely wonderful... but also tragic in every way possible. Again, another comparison to Ink, but one I'd rather not go into very much depth with since its a spoiler for both movies.

Maybe this movie hit me so hard because of its themes of isolation, of psychological torment brought on by loneliness, and by the main character truly loving and missing his partner in love. To me those moments worked so well to bring about some kind of emotion, to evoke a response in me. I like bringing personal input into these reviews, telling why this stuff affected me, why I personally love it or hate it so much. I know a ton of people expect bare bones facts, telling about what the movie is and interpreting it and saying exactly what's going on, and telling EVERYTHING FACTUALLY. Because that's important for some reason.

The thing is, I'm not like that. I meander and go off on other topics. And I don't like people telling me how to write or how to review. This movie, Moon, affects me personally, in a personal way. And maybe that's why I like this movie so much and why I can view it as psychologically horrific. You see, I'm engaged to a woman who lives 200 miles away from me, working a job that leaves me nearly completely alone for ten-twelve hours six days a week. I spend a lot of time by myself. And I spend a lot of time missing the person I love so much it numbs me. So, this movie hits me hard because it's so easy to see how Sam feels, and it's so easy to respond in kind.

I bring all this review stuff up here because I can't stand it. I hate when people expect me to give them answers to movies that are ART that don't necessarily have a singular answer to them. Especially these more psychologically minded movies. Lately I've even gotten people being rude to me, demanding answers to movies, or screaming the answers at me saying I didn't get it. The worst is when people demand I keep personal feelings to myself when reviewing citing it being unprofessional or wrong or just me specific.

Yes, that's the idea, numbnuts. I am personally reviewing and analyzing these movies for me. What I liked and what I didn't like. Seriously, there are many blogs out there to read, many reviewing similar things to what I review. Go ahead and check them out if you don't like the way I review. To me this is fun, watching great or crappy or mediocre movies and just writing about them, talking about them, and having people read them. It's relaxing to watch a movie or read a book or play a video game and then talk about it. It's nice. I like interpreting, but more than that I want to talk about how something hit me about the fiction. Did I like it? Why? Did I hate it? Why?

So, I liked Moon so much because of its story, characters, and setting, certainly. But I loved it so much because it affected me in a more personal way, like Ink or 1408 or other movies that I view as much deeper and more personally affected me than just a movie.

I'm somewhat sorry to get into this in this review, but it's a great movie and I guarantee someone would say something about how this isn't a good review because I should be focusing on the movie, not my feelings on the movie. But that's so dumb. Yes, the movie is about the moon, good old Luna in the sky, but its also about a person, a personality, love, loss, and realization, horrific and disheartening realization. I think this is one of those movies I'll rewatch every once in a while. It's way too good to not watch.

Obviously I recommend this movie. If you haven't seen it already, go find it immediately and watch it.

Movie Appraisal: The Dark Side of the Moon (1990)

Recently I've been enjoying some sweet space horror movies. I've always liked the genre, especially with some spaceship floating through space and finding something waiting out in the cold darkness. It's always been fascinating to me. I mean, look at the tagline of this movie: "Something is waiting." This movie is about space, anything could be waiting. Anything at all. It's what makes space so fascinating, and it's what makes space a perfect place for all the best kinds of horror. You have to be creative when you use space as a medium for sci-fi and for horror. It's not just regular movie monsters jumping out at you, but can be anything from creepy aliens to something very different. Hell, it can even be ourselves. Sometimes we are the demons.

The Dark Side of the Moon was a direct-to-video affair from 1990, directed by D. J. Webster and starring some actors who I recognize and some whom I've never seen before. Joe Turkel is arguably the most famous of the cast (being in Blade Runner will do that for you), and besides my vague recognition of Alan Blumenfeld, Turkel is really the only actor in this movie that I've seen in other sources. I will say that for a direct-to-video movie, it's pretty high quality. There are very few effects, which is a good thing. When they do show up, they're not the best things I've ever seen. Most of the movie's charm comes from watching the actors do their thing and watching the story unfold.

Now, before I get far into this, I have to say that I have a special liking for these types of movies, and I really did enjoy this one. Again, kind of a cheaper sci-fi horror/space horror affair, but it's competent and pretty fun to watch. It has a pretty standard, almost SyFy channel-esque plot and plot twist at times, but the acting and the cinematography are MUCH MUCH better than most direct-to-video crap I've seen in the last decade or so. Hell, this is better than most of the movies I've seen in theatres. I mean, I'd much rather watch this than the travesty, the absolute abomination, that is Black Swan. That movie still makes me angry even almost two years later.

The film starts out on a maintenance spaceship going to fix a satellite only for all systems on the ship to fail. It moves quickly as the crew tries to figure out what's wrong despite all of the systems being green. The ship's computer, a robot woman... uh... thing... named Lesli, tells the crew that nothing is wrong, and yet the ship is rapidly losing both air and heat, and the systems still aren't responding. Now, I have to take a moment and talk about Lesli. Her character is utterly baffling to me. She's a robot computer thing controlling the information of the ship and such, but she's also somehow a beautiful woman for some reason. She never moves out of the chair she's sitting in, and she never truly has any real relevance to the plot beyond being used as an exposition machine. She has a beauty mark and a whole lot of cleavage, but never is shown to have any effect on any of the male crew members who treat her as a machine and nothing more... all the while the one female crew member, Alex, is hit on by basically all of the slimebag characters. Lesli also seems to have some element of artificial intelligence rather than just being a computer, but I'm still baffled. Why does she exist as an actual person? Can she move out of her seat? Can she move at all? Why was she made like that? Does she have functionality close to what a human would? Why didn't they simply make her a gynoid then? She became kind of the central question to me. She was treated as an utterly normal thing to have on a ship (maybe a little experimental with Joe Turkel's character taking care of her, but still...) and it seemed that most of the suspicion for earlier events of the movie fell onto her, but she was never really utilized. Why didn't she do anything? Why was her presence never really a thing? Why did the antagonist presumably try to take her over? And more importantly, why did he fail? I was much more interested in what the hell Lesli was and what she represented and how she was being portrayed than I was in the actual plot of the movie. I still have no idea why she existed in her form in the movie besides being good to look at, but why waste the resources and the time and money and such to have that character when a computer would have been sufficient? I mean this as a question both in the universe of the movie and to the filmmakers. I mean, Camilla More did a fine job as the character, but I'm still baffled by Lesli's presence in the film. I guess if I had the choice I would have used her in some way, used her to make a statement or as a central protagonist or ally to the antagonist. When Joe Turkel's character Paxton goes rogue, I assumed he would shut off control of Lesli's character. It was set up earlier in the film that he could do that with a swipe of his hand, just shut off certain controls to certain crewmembers. That's why I thought he was visiting her near the end of the movie. But no. He went to visit her so she could tell him to back off... and I guess he did? I'm so baffled that my head hurts. I could go on about this for a very long time. It's easily the most confusing and most interesting part of the film. It sets it apart from other films of this type, but still has no reason to be in the movie. Why is she there? What is her purpose? Why wasn't she put to better use? I mean... if I has a robot that could move and was humanesque... well, I would have sent her into the shuttle the crew finds, instead of risking the lives of the crew. Okay, I'm going to stop. I could keep harping on this for a long time.

So, anyway, the ship finds another ship, this one a lost space shuttle, drifting towards them and then eventually docking with them. Nobody is alive on board though. The shuttle does give them both air and some hope, but that doesn't last long. The shuttle has a ton of water damage for seemingly no reason and eventually they find a body in a standard sci-f horror way. The doctor, Dreyfus Steiner (played by Alan Blumenfeld), discovers that the body has a perfect triangle cut into its stomach... and that's when the plot gets a little ridiculous. It all has to do with the Bermuda Triangle and a corresponding triangle on the dark side of the moon, and all that space in between somehow. It's a really silly plot, really SyFy movie schlock, but it actually works kind of well as long as you don't think too hard about the whole thing and how it would work because the moon... you know... orbits the entire Earth and the Earth rotates itself. Also, since the FAR SIDE OF THE MOON is not always dark, there really isn't a DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. It would be like calling the where it is night on Earth "The Dark Side of the Earth." It's silly. (Yes, I know that the term references a radio blackout to and from Earth from that far side of the moon, but most people think of it as an actually dark place which is totally false.)

Yeah, the sci-fi of the movie is weird. Thinking about the movie too long in most aspects of it will make your head ache. It has a Biblical plot tied in with the Bermuda Triangle too... because why not. And let me tell you that the religious aspect is dealt with in the most awkward way possible, showing some of the crew having religious affiliations just fro the express purpose of showing parts of the crew having certain religious affiliations. It's not well handled, with the captain crossing himself at one point despite never mentioning religion the rest of the time, the doctor being Jewish suddenly and inexplicably before having it forgotten before and afterwards, and the body of Gotier having a cross around its neck. And the Devil is some kind of parasite that leeches onto a certain body and gets transmitted through the triangle in the possessed people's stomachs.

The effects for the devil are ridiculous. He's not scary, quoting Biblical passages at me and being so over-the-top evil. It's kind of silly rather than terrifying. There is a scene in this movie as well that's also kind of baffling as the Devil goes to take over his first living victim. There is a weird nude scene... but I already found the objectification of women off here with Lesli. With Alex showing her breasts its all kinds of why? What I mean is that in some of these movies the girls get naked for some reason... a reason that I guess only the filmmakers know. I don't mind it. I mean, seriously, who minds a little nudity from time-to-time? But in my opinion the nudity felt incredibly awkward and out of place in a movie that was kind of sterile and felt like a good made-for-TV movie. I mean even the gore effects are pretty tame... and yet... nudity?  I guess it goes together with the B-movie status of most of these films, but I find it kind of strange. I haven't seen too many other movies this summer (besides Possession) to have a girl show off her assets. And it's weird that it would be this movie to be the first in a while to have a girl get naked in front of the camera.

Anywho, the pacing of the movie is pretty good. I found myself interested in the movie the entire time. I was never bored, never wished for it to be over. The ending was good, although I think some people would be unhappy with it. I honestly feel that it should have ended with the Devil succeeding... but that's okay. It worked well the way they did it.

I honestly enjoyed this movie quite a bit despite certain failures of the plot and sense. I enjoyed the characters, enjoyed the situation, and found the movie acceptable in most ways. It is highly reminiscent (even though it came out before these movie) of Event Horizon and Sunshine, but much, much worse than either of those films. I still haven't reviewed Sunshine, have I? That's a movie I have to get around to watching again. Hell, I've been wanting to watch Event Horizon again too. I love that movie so much.

Well, anyway, I guess I'm moving into doing some space horror movie reviews. I was on an Asian horror binge for a while, and I do have more to watch and more will be incoming, but I need a break from those movies at times. The ones I've seen are all very similar to one another and most... although being creepy at times... are rather dry and boring at others. I recently took some time and saw Whispering Corridors and Apartment 1303, a Korean and a Japanese movie respectively, but haven't written reviews of either of them yet. They'll be coming, I just don't know when. I also saw Roger Corman's Galaxy of Terror, and I can't wait to put out a review of that.

Uh... oh no... I'm getting away from The Dark Side of the Moon! It's a decent movie, but one I would not recommend unless these types of movies are your thing. There are many better space horror movies, and this one is more average and kind of dumb when compared to others. I enjoyed it though although as you can tell I had way too many unanswered questions that I was baffled by in the end. That took away from my ultimate enjoyment of the movie.

Movie Appraisal: Apollo 18 (2011)

So, that was fun.

Okay, I have to admit that I like these kinds of movies, not sure why, but I like the idea of them. There's something about space or the sea... some kind of abandoned ship in one of those places that appeals to me in a visceral kind of way. I loved Pandorum, Ghost Ship, Sunshine, and Event Horizon... probably others too, but I can't remember all of them... or maybe I just did mention every last one I've ever seen. Who knows? My point is that Apollo 18 is similar to those movies without being the same kind of rehashed plot. In many ways this movie is equal parts Sunshine (let's use that as an example) and Paranormal Activity, and it makes a fairly fun movie.

This is a found footage film and I think it works well as that except in a few cases where I was confused about where the shots were actually coming from. Some of the wider shots left me confused. I would assume that there is some explanation as to where they came from: the rover or something, but I found it a bit mystifying at times.

I also found the movie, although it was fairly short, to be very slow-paced. Now, usually I like slow-paced films, but this one seemed to be much less about creating a mysterious atmosphere than creating any believable bonds to the characters... or even creating true horror. I suppose this should be classified as a horror movie, but... well, it isn't very scary, nor is it very suspenseful. You know right away what's going to happen. You know the plot before the movie even begins. It becomes heavy-handed and somewhat clumsy at telling its own story.

The plot and story are both strong here, but again, the heavy-handedness of what the filmmakers are trying to say undermines a lot of what could have made the story great. So, no, this isn't a great movie. It was a fun movie. It was a movie I enjoyed watching for the most part, but it will never be one of those great movies I hold onto throughout my entire life.

The characters are basically there to exist. They don't really matter. You can tell me that you love Nate or Ben or John and tomorrow I'll forget who those characters even were. They don't matter. Their personalities don't matter. They could have been named gruff commander who is going to go crazy, dashing and handsome young captain who will die at the end while thinking about his family, and guy who basically does nothing in the course of this movie and it would basically come down to the same thing. Or they could all be named Man and that's about as much characterizations as we get out of them. They are astronauts. They are cool people who are doing something awesome. Heroes, not villains. Well, that's what you get out of characters.

The setting is the mainstay of this movie. It's the freaking moon. Everybody wants to go to the moon and everybody was unhappy when the moon program was cancelled due to budget cuts and such. So, a horror movie based off of an unheard of mission to the moon with everybody dying horrible deaths?I think everybody loves hat premise. And it was executed well, not perfectly, but certainly predictably. Obviously the Soviets had to land somebody on the moon too, obviously they didn't return, obviously the American lander would get broken and they'd have to use the Soviet ship to escape, and obviously they would all die. Oh, and obviously there would be moon monsters because what fun is making any movie when you don't have moon monsters? If I ever make a movie I'm inserting moon monsters into it regardless of what genre the movie is. If it's a freaking romantic comedy there will be moon monsters. The movie will take place on the moon and it will be about moon monsters falling in love.

Okay, I'm being dumb, but I'm trying to make a point here. The moon monsters are dumb. The phrase moon monsters is not intimidating, it is not scary. Showing those moon monster spiders is basically undermining the entire premise of me trying to be afraid of something unknown. I see that they are moon monster spiders. What's there to be afraid of? Just spray some bug spray or something... whack 'em with a hammer, and you're good. I'm obviously trying to be a big jokester, but my point is valid. Showing the moon spiders just makes the monster a whole lot less scary. I was much more intrigued when the monster was a simple rock. The moment it started movie inside of old grizzled commander's helmet I found myself chuckling at the obvious CGI. It took me right out of the movie. I mean, it didn't happen often with the monsters, and for the most part it was handled pretty well, but it was a huge misstep and left me with a shattered perception of a moon movie without crazy moon monsters.

The moon shots were well done for the most part, and I really did like it when the young heroic astronaut was inside of the crater. That was incredibly well done, with the flashing light or whatever that was supposed to be. Although why he just didn't have a flashlight is beyond me. Is there some reason that flashlights don't work on the moon that I don't quite understand? Again, don't get me wrong, I thought the scene was well done, but a flashlight would have been superior for what they were doing unless moon flashlights don't exist, which I suppose is a valid reason for them not using one. I just have no idea myself, and it stuck in my mind as a question. Both crater scenes were well done. I liked how I literally could not tell what was going on in either scene and there was a big hectic feeling all around. I liked that. It was well paced and well done all around. If that had been the only time we see the little moon monsters, I would have been okay with it, but no... no, of course that's not the only time.

As for other elements of the movie... uh... when they're in the spacesuits, it's pretty cool. I mean, that had to be fun for the actors. The Soviet lander was a nice, if all too predictable, touch. I liked it when they notice the different footprints in the moon dust. That was neat and had the exact right tone for what was happening. Sometimes the acting was not the best, and there were certain "What the hell is going on?" moments from the actors that felt incredibly hammy. A lot of movies insist on using that line, and I suppose it might be used if we were in that situation in real life, but the delivery of the lines just did not do the line justice at all and came off as hammy all around. It's a nitpick, but I've seen that line used poorly way too often and I want to say that it's a real problem.

The radio sounds were also a nice touch, but they did get old after a while, kind of bogging down the movie, being a convenient and not readily explainable reason for the two mooned astronauts to be cut off from everybody else. I thought it was kind of silly towards the end of the movie even if early in the movie the communications disruptions were subtle and appropriate.

Oh, and I have to say that the government being full of awful people is always something I have to like. There's something about a bunch of bad men who are absolutely ruthless running the country that appeals to me so much even though I'd absolutely hate it. The government, in this movie, are absolute jerks (I want to use a harsher word than jerk by the way.) and I love every second of knowing that those careful jerks are probably right about their logic. I don't particularly think that the government is well portrayed in this movie if you want a sympathetic and namby-pamby (That's a term, right?) government, but if you want a ruthless, "We're sending you guys out there to see what's out there and also so that you probably all die alone in space." type of of government, that's the one you get in this movie. I love to hate them. It's fantastic.

Altogether, I did like this movie even if it was all over the place in terms of pacing, plotting, and quality. It was predictable, sure, but I, for one, would have been disappointed if certain elements weren't there. It was a fun movie and one that anybody who is a fan of these sorts of movies should try out. If you don't like found footage films or movies like Pandorum, Sunshine, or Event Horizon... I guess Solaris counts as well... then you should avoid it.