Blu-ray Movie Reviews

It is the near future. Astronaut Sam Bell is living on the far side of the moon, completing a three-year contract with Lunar Industries to mine Earth's primary source of energy, Helium-3. It is a lonely job, made harder by a broken satellite that allows no live communications home. Taped messages are all Sam can send and receive. Thankfully, his time on the moon is nearly over, and Sam will be reunited with his wife, Tess, and their three-year-old daughter, Eve, in only a few short weeks. Finally, he will leave the isolation of "Sarang," the moon base that has been his home for so long, and he will finally have someone to talk to beyond "GERTY," the base's well-intentioned, but rather uncomplicated computer. Suddenly, Sam's health starts to deteriorate. Painful headaches, hallucinations and a lack of focus lead to an almost fatal accident on a routine drive on the moon in a lunar rover. After returning to the base (with no memory of how he got there), Sam realized that he is fighting the clock to discover what's going on and where he fits into company plans.

This has been a great year for sci-fi films. While we’ve seen some great additions to the big budget popcorn category (Star Trek and Avatar), we’ve also seen some amazing stuff from the smaller crowd like this and District 9. This one reminds me a bit more of a Kubrick film with its pacing and mental games, but it does a great job with its simplicity. Rockwell is in top form and carries the movie brilliantly for being really the only actor in it. If you’re a fan of more intellectual science fiction, this isn’t one to miss.

The presentation is everything I would expect from a Sony Blu-ray. The picture quality is solid, though the Spartan production design doesn’t do much for eye candy. Detail is sharp though and the image has great depth and definition. Blacks aren’t quite as deep as I was expecting, but they manage to get the job done. The soundtrack focuses mainly on the score, which is a beautiful piano piece that stays with you well after.

Extras include a pair of commentaries along with a making of feature and a look at the special effects.

This is solid science fiction that doesn’t rely on big special effects but instead focuses on a well crafted mind game. The Blu-ray presentation is solid making this an easy recommendation.