Science fiction movies don't necessarily flourish in deep space. The best ones blossom in the fertile gray matter between your ears, and that's precisely where Moon takes root. Trafficking in paranoia, isolation and corporate cover-ups, this delicately crafted first feature from director Duncan Jones shines a light toward the awkward shadow dance between science and humanity.

Jones wrote the story specifically for actor Sam Rockwell (Choke, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), who delivers a virtuoso performance as helium miner Sam Bell. Playing a lonely man on the moon as he nears the end of his three-year mining contract, Rockwell digs deep and comes up with an intricately layered portrait of a drone at wits' end.

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As he preps for his return to Earth, Sam starts hallucinating about sinister scenarios that may or may not be unfolding at his lunar outpost. Glitches in video messages he receives from his wife and from his corporate masters only fuel his paranoia.

Meanwhile, Sam's robotic helper Gerty — voiced by Kevin Spacey, who does a fine, affect-free imitation of 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL 9000 — begins to behave suspiciously.

This simmering psychological stew eventually comes to a roiling boil when Sam finally confronts his predicament.

Moon, which hits theaters in New York and Los Angeles this Friday and expands to other markets the week after, is not your typical Hollywood sci-fi offering. While a blockbuster like J.J. Abrams' whiz-bang Star Trek dazzles with candy-coated visual effects but dissolves like so much cotton candy soon after, Moon's mental momentum builds slowly. Its examination of contemporary issues will linger in moviegoers' minds long after the film's last flicker.

A sci-fi fan from way back, director Jones name-checked '70s and '80s classics like Alien, Outland and Silent Running after Moon made its West Coast premiere last month during the San Francisco International Film Festival.

"We thought it would be fun to play around with people's expectations," he said, "sort of set up what they thought was gonna happen because of the films that they've seen ... and then take them in a different direction."

That thoughtful approach pays off, making Moon a movie that stands up to repeated viewing. Despite its relatively low budget (Jones says Moon cost $5 million to produce), this indie gem delivers plenty of gorgeous special effects (more than 450 FX shots during the 33-day production, according to the director).

Cinematographer Gary Shaw's exterior shots rely heavily on old-school models for aesthetic as well as financial reasons, Jones said. When Sam patrols the heavily shadowed surface of the moon in a rover created by the same U.K. model makers that crafted Alien's spaceship Nostromo, the Earth — giant, blue and beautiful — floats on the horizon almost like a colorized outtake from the Apollo 11 mission.

With no giant explosions, no monstrous aliens and no shortage of nods to cerebral sci-fi classics, Moon delivers a stirring, character-driven story about a profoundly isolated blue-collar guy in a bad situation. Rockwell's intensely introspective performance imbues this somber little movie with sci-fi beauty that's more than skin deep.

Wired: Rockwell in stereo; magnificent moonscapes.

Tired: Intro and outro feel rote; ominous soundtrack gets repetitive.

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