"Moon" is awesome but Kevin Spacey still sucks ("Moon," 2009, directed by Duncan Jones)

Kevin Spacey sucks. Lets just get that out of the way right off the bat. In my opinion he hasn’t done a good movie since “American Beauty.”

He was my least favourite part of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” and he was also my least favourite part of “Moon” starring him and Sam Rockwell, which I watched last night. But I’m happy to say his role was minor enough that he didn’t have too detrimental an effect and the movie was still pretty amazing.

But wait a minute, why am I starting a blog about a movie I loved with the one part I didn’t? Let me start over:

"Moon" stars Sam Rockwell as astronaut Sam Bell, and Kevin Spacey as Gerty, the Hal-like (Think “2001: A Space Odyssey”) computer/robot assistant who keeps him company on the moon.

Sam is nearing the end of his three-year contract running a fuel-mining station on the far side of the moon, and is looking forward to going home to see his wife and young daughter.

The film is set in the future (though it’s not clear how far) and is entirely set on the moon. The inside of the station is mostly cold and industrial. Sam’s messy quarters, a room where he prunes and talks to his plant collection, and a makeshift table where he is carving a miniature town -- though he only remembers making a few of the buildings -- are the main personal touches.

When Sam leaves the station to repair the Helium-3 harvesters when they go offline, the moonscape is silent, eerie and monochromatic, pretty much how you’d expect it to look and feel.

In the scenes where Sam’s little moon-rover is seen trekking across the surface, the moonscape almost looks like it was shot in miniature using a paper mache model and a toy moon-mobile -- and it works. The scenes look fantastic, especially when the Earth is visible hanging over the horizon, a beautiful, far-away world.

It all helps add to the mystery of why Sam is there, what’s really going on with his wife – from whom he receives cryptic, puzzling video messages – and how he’s going to survive until it’s time to go home.

Rockwell is fantastic in this role, changing his stripes like a chameleon several times during the film, convincingly every time. One moment he’s the grungy, worn out astronaut, the next he’s the guilt-plagued absentee father, then the slick clean-cut keener or the suspicious outsider.

And in some cases he’s seamlessly carrying out conversations between those characters, dialogue that is also somehow believable. Nancy, my slightly crazy video store lady, told me today: "You would never think for a SECOND that it was one actor!", even though the evidence is staring you in the face.

My friend Tyrone says this is one of those movies you shouldn’t spend too much time trying to figure out, or you’ll ruin the ending. I mostly disagree. It’s not a big surprise finish, it’s more of a steady burn that builds and builds, the story getting better as the truth is revealed.

The movie was directed by Duncan Zowie Heywood Jones, who now goes by Duncan Jones, and is the son of David Bowie. It’s his directorial debut, and a solid effort.