My first thought when I heard about Moon was that it would be Sam Rockwell's opportunity to do his Tom Hanks-Castaway thing, with a sliver of George Clooney's turn in Solaris. The solidarity of onecharacter in a confined situation is always an interesting setup (albeit one that can get old fast) but the truth is that Rockwell is more than capable of carrying the feature. What emerges is a movie about individuality, humanity, memory, and soul.

Sam Bell (Rockwell) has been sent to the Earth's moon to harvest Helium-3 as a source of energy after Earth exhausts its power options. Cut off from "live" communication with Earth, Bell watches his messages from his family and misses them, but he's counting down to the last two weeks of his service there for Lunar Industries. Suddenly, his mind starts to play tricks with him and he begins to doubt himself, and we can tell that things are going to unravel.

It doesn't take long (the first thirty minutes) until Rockwell's Sam discovers another Sam Bell who shares many of the same experiences and memories (and looks exactly like him, I might add). Up until this point, Sam #1's only company has been the the computer GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey at his absolute coldest and creepiest). But when the two Sams start to share their memories with each other, they recognize that they're in the midst of a conspiracy, and their use of pronouns ("I" versus "we") begins to switch over.

The different Sams have different personalities and responses to their predicament and the truth they are experiencing in common. We the audience have the opportunity to consider which Sam we would side with initially and how we would feel about the truth they encounter. While GERTY begins to let the Sams know about what happened (to each of them) and their role as clones, I found myself seeing the clones as a collective "one." We're fragmented and impermanent creatures who long to be known and to be part of community, but we exist in silent isolation. Technology, highlighted here by GERTY, separates us further as we connect through cell phones and Skype, Facebook, and Twitter. But on the moon, the Sams start to establish who they really are, once they discover "human" community again.

In the end, the Sams are faced with decisions that provide them with the opportunity to be truly "human" or not. The parallel is pretty simple to make based on the way that Moon presents it: clones live like humans, become fully human even, when they are willing to make sacrifices for others, rather than achieve their pre-programmed goal; humans live like Christ, or become Christ-like, when they are willing to give up their life physically or metaphorically to save others and welcome others into God's kingdom.

For a movie that moves from isolation to community in the midst of space, Moon couldn't use science fiction much more clearly to highlight sacrifice, love, and humanity. What appears to be a dull and boring tale is quite exciting, even exhilarating, and proves to be a modern day, futuristic parable at the same time. If you dug this and haven't seen it, Gattaca is another science fiction tale to challenge your humanity and your faith, that demands you ask: How are we human? Wow are we real? Wow can we truly embrace Christ? Moon has asked all these questions, and answered most of them, leaving viewers inspired to be more than they are and embrace every moment.