Lunar Madness

In the critically butt-kissed Moon (2009), Sam Bell works on the Moon base Sarang. Since it’s the Moon, every day is a night shift. Heh. He’s been there three years, scraping the moon’s surface for Helium-3. (He gets to keep any pocket change he finds, though.) LUNAR, his employers, have sent a transmission that his shift is nearly over, and to prepare for the latest employee to arrive. This means hiding those dirty magazines in an airlock or nearby crater.

Aside from a talking computer named GERTY that runs the space station (I would’ve named it Pocket Pal 3000), Sam’s the only one on the Moon. So how is it he sees someone standing outside on the Moon’s surface? Is it a member of Pink Floyd? Is it Space Jesus? Sam decides to find out.

While gunning his future tractor to the mysterious body, he crashes and before losing consciousness, switches his suit to life support. Good thing, as there’s no air on the Moon. (I found that out from the Internet.) Sam wakes up in the sick bay and overhears GERTY having a conversation with LUNAR, telling the computer to not let Sam outside the house.

 Sam manages to trick the computer and heads back to the wreck, where he finds…himself! Bringing his doppelganger to the base, the two try to cope with each other’s existence. Talk about space madness — one Sam is agitated, the other calm and logical. If there were two of me in a space station, there’d be a fight to the death over whatever Romulan Ale was left in the fridge.

Sam #1 is getting sick and looks like he has the space flu. Sam #2 seems to be as healthy as a fresh Moon peach. Sick Sam slowly uncovers clues as to why there are two of him and… He needs to complete the mystery before the relief ship gets to the Moon and spanks his moon for crashing the company tractor.

When Sam discovers the sad truth, it’s not pretty. You’ll probably even cry comsos tears when you find out. A three-stage twist sets up a finish that, while not accompanied by UFOs or laser beams, is quite gratifying and satisfying, and any other words that rhymes with those two. Moon is an unconventional but way cool sci-fi film. Makes me wanna go to the Moon. I’ll have to put that on my bucket list.