MOON (UK 2008) **
Directed by Duncan Jones

There is Helium-3 on those moon hills and it is a potential source of energy for the planet earth.  This true fact is the premise of Duncan Jones’ low budget sci-fi debut called MOON, a cross between parts of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and the ALIENS space horror genre.

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is stationed on the moon with talking computer GERT (compare to HAL in 2001) to look after operations.  After he is knocked unconscious at the end of his 3-year stint, Sam begins to suspect something is wrong.  Worse, when he discovers someone else in the spaceship!  Worse still when he discovers that, that someone else is a complete replica of himself.

This sparse (in looks, narrative and dialogue) film runs out of steam fast.  Once, the audience gets the heads up on the secret of the clones, the film loses its audience’s attention.  The film’s sets are made up to look like what could be found in other sci-fi films like 2001, 2010, ALIENS and countless others.  Jones should have opted for something different (like a totally empty or 70’s) as his film is, in terms of budget.  The best segment has Sam fighting himself, which is an idea (a clone fighting a clone) quite novel to witness, though this has also been done before.

MOON reminds one of the horror low-budget CUBE.  An excellent idea for a movie, but the ideas stop coming.  Hope there will not be a MOON 2 as there was a CUBE 2.