SHORT TAKE: “Moon” (***1/2)

In the harrowing finale of Alejandro Amenábar’s “Abre Los Ojos,” actor Chete Lera screams in defiance at the unthinkable events unfolding around him: “I’m real and I have two daughters!”  Falling to his knees, he slowly accepts the gut-wrenching realization that is the film’s final twist.  That idea is front and center in Duncan Jones’s “Moon,” an all-too-rare instance of sci-fi entertainment that understands the value of human emotion in a genre that can often eschew it.

In what might not be a too-distant future, given the nature of Earth’s depleting resources, energy companies have sought out the cosmos for further profit and power stability.  The film opens with a typical advertisement from one such company called Lunar Industries that sets the scene: mining the planet’s primary source of energy Helium-3 on the far side of the moon is the answer to sustaining our delicate existence.  “Sleep in comfort knowing you’re in our hands,” that kind of thing.  And the sight of giant combines harvesting lunar soil for the isotope is quite an alarming one indeed.

Sam Rockwell stars as astronaut Sam Bell, a Lunar contractee nearing the end of his three-year stint overseeing the harvesting in what has to be the loneliest job in the universe.  He wakes up, he jogs on his treadmill, he might take a trip out to the combines if something goes awry, but mostly he chats it up with his only company at the outpost: GERTY, a computer system know-it-all voiced by Kevin Spacey in an obvious tip-of-the-hat to Douglas Rain’s HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”  Only the ominous red orb is replaced by a yellow emoticon that gets played up for a laugh or two throughout.

However, something’s not quite right (but of course).  Sam keeps seeing things: an odd blip of his former self barking out commands on a monitor here, the vague vision of a woman floating out near the combines there.  After a lunar crawler accident sends the plot’s mysteries on an inevitable course, Sam discovers he and GERTY are not alone after all.  The unfortunate realities this new visitor represents are the ideas “Moon” smartly concerns itself with.

In his feature film debut, Jones has crafted an exemplary installment in what might become a banner year for sci-fi cinema. (“Star Trek” brings a number of twisted cosmological ideas to the fore in the guise of a populist studio blockbuster, while James Cameron’s “Avatar,” the industry’s anticipated “game-changer,” will close out the year in December.)  The director not only cooks up a crafty yarn but he also makes an intriguing comment toward the idea that, to profiteering conglomerates like the fictional Lunar Industries, people come second to dollars and cents.  The timeliness of Lunar being an energy company certainly isn’t lost on him.

Rockwell’s performance is so captivating, it leaves one questioning why he hasn’t been pegged as the leading man he clearly can be.  The same curiosity popped up after his work in “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” six years ago.  He had another similar go in “Choke” last year, but here, he hasn’t the added benefit of other stars helping to bear the load.  The film is 100% dependent on the viewer’s investment in him and his conflict and he knocks it out of the park.  Perhaps he’s simply more comfortable blowing actors like Gene Hackman and Brad Pitt off the screen, but he sings in roles like this.

There are precious few sci-fi-interested filmmakers concerned with the intimate ideas being put forth in “Moon.”  Alex Proyas wants to be there, but isn’t quite.  Richard Kelly thought he had it, but never did.  Terry Gilliam has always had the promise when his films weren’t drowned in style, while Christopher Nolan and the aforementioned Amenábar retain a lingering potential.  But it’s fascinating to see a guy like Jones come around and show everyone how its done.