Lune de sang

This was a glossy, international co-production by ITV. An attempt by the channel to show that they can attract big talent and make a glossy production, something the BBC could not do.

There is a twist in this drama that it is a whodunnit and we are looking for a mysterious killer on the moon.

Julian Sands plays a Russian investigator with all the charisma of a zombie in a coma. The Great Dane Brigitte Nielsen plays an American who gets out acted by her recently enhanced breasts.

The film is tosh in so many levels, from the script to the acting. To call it wooden is being offensive to forests.

The production design is pants, for something on the moon I get the feeling that we are on a spaceship with beige sets.

The fall in the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union soon after the production was shown makes it look like a throwback to another era.

Also it was not much of a murder mystery.

What a shame that somebody retitled this film to MURDER BY MOONLIGHT, which makes it sound like any bog standard murder mystery or film noir. The original title, MURDER ON THE MOON, is much better and a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of title: this is a straightforward murder mystery with the twist that the entire film is set on a Martian moonbase in the near future.

It's a straightforward effort, constrained by the nature of the TV movie into neither being particularly sexy or violent, but saying that it's a film which holds the attention throughout. The storyline sees an astronaut being murdered and an American (Brigitte Nielsen in an unusual casting choice) and a Russian (Julian Sands in another unusual casting choice) forced to team up to solve the crime.

The film keeps you watching throughout, even if Nielsen's acting ability isn't really apparent. Julian Sands is much better and it's fun to see him before he was typecast as a stock British bad guy in the movies. The British nature of this film means that there are supporting roles for people you wouldn't expect to see in this kind of production, like David Yip and Brian Cox, with Celia Imrie particularly incongruous. Even ALIENS's Ricco Ross pops up in an early cameo. American director Michael Lindsay-Hogg was best known for his work on the famous BRIDESHEAD REVISITED TV miniseries of the early 1980s.

Instantly we see the death of an American astronaut on Russian soil on the moon. Dennis Hull played by Gerald McRaney wants an American there to investigate rather than under just Russian investigative eyes. In comes Brigette Nielsen as the American Maggie Bartok and Julian Sands as the Russian Major Kirilenko. Due to the political strife the movie does have some tension between the characters and in the end a little better than I was actually expecting mainly due to the usually good Sands. But this TV movie has some big problems. One is the acting by Nielsen just doesn't help the movie at all, she seems to just smile a lot and punch through her lines. But, an even bigger problem is there is absolutely no set up to the murder victim or any of the characters before the murder or their interrogation by the investigators. Which is too bad, because the mystery angle to this movie isn't bad, just really poorly plotted through the early goings.

I watched this on the UK Horror Channel and what do you know, that's spot on just where it should be! On the plus side, the plot is not too bad if very dated, the set of supporting actors is really good, Brian Cox and Celia Imrie set the tone with Julian Sands making a valiant attempt to play the Russian 'NastyBecomesNicey', and the settings are fine.

On the other hand...

It's marred by chronic 2D character stereotyping. As always we have inflexible Russians all plain looking in dull dingy outfits, and cool suited attractive Americans, sad because they are unable to communicate meaningfully with them. And it's killed off by Brigitte Nielsen's managing to make the whole thing look like it's acted according to the Plywood school. Whoever thought that she could possibly contribute to making it a watchable film should have their cabin airlock bolts cut and be flushed out into space. She honked in Rocky but was hailed because, lets face it, anyone would have looked passable with Sly Stallone to compare against, and she honks here.

if - - you - - are - - irritated - - by - - having - - to - - read - - this - - written - - like - - a - - list - - you - - will - - know - - just - - what - - I - - mean - - it - - is - - just - - like - - briquette's - - delivery - - of - - even - - the - - simplest - - lines.

Good for a sozzled night in with nothing else to watch, but if you expect anything to draw you in and engage you as many old films of this era can, look elsewhere.

I liked this movie on many levels, despite the poor acting by Neilson. It had the flavor of a realistic moon base, and a mystery that made sense. It provided a haunting view of a political future and expected technologies. I think it was underrated and would like to see it shown on syfy channel. It is definitely as good as the current made for TV movies. As a who-done-it, it is moderate in its effectiveness, although it did take me a while to guess who the guilty party was. There were some surprising revelations along the way that greatly added to the quality of the story--revelations that were made in a low-key but effective manner and that served to define the politics and technology that made the story a true science fiction of the hard type.