Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009)

Sam Rockwell in Moon

Cast: Sam Rockwell, Dominique McElligott, Rosie Shaw, Adrienne Shaw, Kaya Scodelario, Benedict Wong, Matt Berry, voice of Kevin Spacey. Screenplay: Duncan Jones, Nathan Parker. Cinematography: Gary Shaw. Production design: Tony Noble. Film editing: Nicolas Gaster. Music: Clint Mansell. 

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, a mining engineer at the end of a three-year stint as the solitary maintenance man at an outpost on the dark side of the moon. His only companion is a robot called GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), who tends to his every need. The energy corporation for which he works has promised to return him to his wife and small child on Earth when his shift is over, but he has been unable to communicate directly with his family, only receiving recorded messages. Then an accident happens, and the truth about who Sam Bell is comes out. There's an ironic happy ending to the film: "Sam" gets returned to Earth, where he exposes corporate wrongdoing, but the last word is uttered by a Rush Limbaughesque talk show host: "You know what? He's one of two things. He's a wacko or he's an illegal immigrant. Either way, they need to lock him up!" Moon might have been a little better if this satiric note had played throughout the film, but it's solid sci-fi that doesn't depend on flashy CGI and it features a compelling performance by Rockwell.  

Baby Driver (Edgar Wright, 2017)

Jon Hamm, Eiza González, Ansel Elgort, and Jamie Foxx in Baby Driver

Baby: Ansel Elgort
Debora: Lily James
Doc: Kevin Spacey
Buddy: Jon Hamm
Bats: Jamie Foxx
Darling: Eiza González
Griff: Jon Bernthal
Joseph: CJ Jones
Eddie: Flea
JD: Lanny Joon

Director: Edgar Wright
Screenplay: Edgar Wright
Cinematography: Bill Pope
Production design: Marcus Rowland
Film editing: Jonathan Amos, Paul Machliss
Music: Steven Price

As the old moralizing adage has it, anything worth doing is worth doing well. But what if something is not worth doing? Do we really need another car-chase-crammed, Tarantino-tinged, hyperviolent heist thriller? Even if it's as well done as Edgar Wright's Baby Driver? Is "It held my interest" enough? If so, Baby Driver held my interest because Wright created some intriguing characters and assigned them to first-rate actors like Ansel Elgort, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, and Kevin Spacey.* I could wish that they had been given more interesting things to do than commit crimes and try to kill one another off, or that we didn't have to sit through another insane demolition of bright shiny cars to find out who survives and how and why. I could wish for some backstory for Baby (né Miles) beyond the fact that he lost his bickering parents in a car crash and somehow wound up as driver for Doc and caregiver for a deaf-mute black man named Joseph. I could wish that the romance of Baby and Debora didn't seem so formulaic -- you've got a handsome young leading man so he must have a pretty girlfriend, one who puts them in jeopardy. Or I could just sit back and enjoy the thing, especially the wittily chosen music track and the way Wright fits the action to the tunes: The film has a credited choreographer, Ryan Heffington, and since there are no traditional dance numbers it seems that he was hired to help the actors move to the music -- in fact, the whole film was inspired by Wright's work on music videos.

*This may be Spacey's last major movie, given the many charges levied against him. Even Baby Driver is a little hard to watch without those coming to mind.