The sheer volume of movies available through theaters, home entertainment and services like Netflix can make it difficult to discern the good from the bad and the ugly in the world of cinema. Every so often, we here at NBNtertainment will be taking a major studio release and picking out an alternative film of a similar genre, theme or style for you to check out as a comparative primer.
Most of the criticisms levied against the rebooted Star Trek films posit that director J.J Abrams has sapped the franchise of its cerebral trappings in favor of loud, dumb spectacle, turning what was once a niche intellectual serial into a blockbuster bludgeon for the masses. I set out to look for a film that does embody the more intellectual side of a genre that's slowly lost much of its pop cultural identity and found solace in a brilliant little picture called Moon. But first, I need to whine a little bit, as no writer can be personally fulfilled until he gets to complain incessantly about the things he loves.
The people who shit on Abrams and his abandoment of the traditional Trek style aren't necessarily unjustified. His two re-imaginings, and in particular the recently released, bafflingly titled Star Trek Into Darkness, are littered with the logical plot holes and poor narrative structure that have become an annoying idiosyncrasy of the director.
They’re great action movies despite the Trekkie fanboy rage and Abrams’s short-comings as a storyteller: The cast assembled is populated by uniformly strong actors (see; Benedict Cumberbatch), the fluid camera movement and crisp visuals are a marvel to behold on the big screen and some impressive set pieces propel the narrative. But Into Darkness and its prequel, despite all their muscle, are not representative of the “hard,” smart science fiction that is definitively Trek.
A film that does claw at the more philosophical, ethically prodding aspects of the genre is Duncan Jones’s astounding 2009 debut, Moon. Though both Moon and Star Trek Into Darkness take place in the distant future, amid the vast expanse and infinite wonder of space, I don’t think two films exist that are more different.
Where Star Trek’s dramatic dynamic is vested in the strength of its ensemble, Moon really only has one character, astronaut Sam Bell, played with aplomb and a scruffy charisma by the criminally underused Sam Rockwell.
Bell is the sole operator of an isolated lunar base that harvests helium-3, a rare resource only found on the moon’s surface that's essential to the survival of an economically and environmentally scorched Earth. Bell’s life is grating and monotonous: During his three-year contract, he mines, stores and ships moon minerals back to the home planet in casket-like pods, his only company being the benign GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), a screen-faced robot with keen human sensibilities expressed through various emoticons. Only once his contract is up does Bell become wary of his parent company’s shifty motivations and the danger that he might not be going home just yet.
To parse out too much of what happens to Bell in his final weeks on the lunar base would spoil Moon’s impact. Very little happens in terms of action, and the few surprises, though effective, are dished out at a slow pace.
What we have in place of Klingon Warbirds and phaser gun battles is the presence of a restless existential dread that’s made all the more palpable by Rockwell, whose performance balances a pained loneliness with bone dry humor. Any given scene can go from authentically funny, to somberly introspective or profoundly sad in the span of a minute in his hands, without devolving into treacle or cheap histrionics.
Jones, working on a shoe-string budget, gives the setting and his star little room to breathe, and though the film can at times feel cramped, sterile and claustrophobic, that’s more a testament to its realized aesthetic than a fault to be scrutinized. The discomfort is the design. We’re meant to feel as bored, aimless and oppressed as Sam, so that those moments of catharsis, manifested by turns in horror, depression and happy revelation, are all the more poignant.
The anxious atmosphere here is only further heightened by Clint Mansell’s gloomy, synth-laden score and a backdrop of lunar desolation composed of clever practical and computer generated effects. Moon may be set in an improbable future, but the detail and depth of craft make the setting, however limited, seem tangible.
And while Moon’s narrative stays firmly grounded, sometimes to the point of becoming static, its emotional arc boldly explores the workings of a tortured psyche and the meaning of individual identity.
It's introspective without succumbing to pretentious naval-gazing, profound without padding out a complicated plot. For anyone interested in challenging, minamalist scif-fi drama, I can't think of a recent film more commendable than Moon.
Welcome to the final frontier.