Sunshine

[Remo D]

Danny Boyle made TRAINSPOTTING and 28 DAYS LATER, among other things.

My daughter is a huge Cillian Murphy fan.

Mick LaSalle ripped this one of the largest holes he's ever ripped.

It was playing in town.

No way were we going to pass this up.

And I kid you not--this is one of the very best science-fiction films I've seen in a long time.

Plotwise, I could invoke every end-of-the-world scenario from ARMAGEDDON to THE CORE and back. I could also describe SUNSHINE as DARK STAR meets SILENT RUNNING meets EVENT HORIZON. And I'd still fail to get my point across.

Premise: the sun is dying, and we need to detonate a special payload in order to rejuvenate it. Previous mission failed--Icarus One vanished without a trace. Icarus Two is our last chance to get it right. Note to self: don't name a mission "Icarus." DAEDALUS is the one who flew successfully. His son Icarus was the one who flew TOO close to the sun... his wings melted and he dropped like a stone. You'd name a space mission after HIM?

But SUNSHINE isn't about global catastrophe... indeed, there's only one scene set on Earth at all. It's about the crew of seven trying to maintain their mission--and their sanity--aboard Icarus Two. It's about the logistics, it's about the complications, it's about the painful, impossible decisions that must be made when the unexpected arises--which, of course, it does.

So there's your DARK STAR (and it is NO coincidence that the captain of the missing Icarus One was named "Pinbacker"). For all its goofy humor (completely absent from SUNSHINE), DARK STAR was about real people on a lonely mission--detonating unstable planets and ultimately dealing with the consequences of "playing God." It took a large page from the writings of Ray Bradbury--and this, in turn, is reflected in Boyle's film. I invoke SILENT RUNNING with the crucial supporting structure of the "oxygen garden"--and as for EVENT HORIZON? There is a HUGE similarity that you will see for yourself... minus any supernatural content. And despite what you may have read in other reviews, it works (nice bonus for the horror fans, too).

The cast (including such familiar faces as Murphy, Michelle Yeoh and even the Human Torch himself, Chris Evans, here given more than a comic-book character to play) is excellent, the crisis situations are more than believable, and the science (at least as contained in this movie) accounts for itself throughout. Add Boyle's outstanding visuals (watch out for those subliminals, too!) and tight pacing to the package and you've got yourself something truly special (Mick and I couldn't POSSIBLY have been watching the same movie--somebody must have really put one over on him this time).

I've seen more than my share of STAR WARS and its clones, I've seen all the "big dumb fun" disaster movies, and I've seen similarly ambitious films come off as completely superficial (remember Brian De Palma's MISSION TO MARS?) or self-restricted (Soderbergh's remake of SOLARIS just wasn't going to make it shoehorned into ninety minutes). SUNSHINE isn't a Western set in space, it's not a monster movie (as such, anyway), and when things blow up, it's not trying to be "cool" about it. This is genuine, visionary SCIENCE FICTION--and it would be a mistake to let the all-too-obvious premise cause you to pass it up.

[Irrylath]

ha! I knew this wasn't going suck completely!! I know the trailer made it have that hokey Armageddon feel (and fuck it, I liked that movie, I like all of those end-of-the-world movies, who am I kidding?), but I still knew that that I wanted to go see it. Now, I just need to find someone to drag along with me.

[Kimberly]

It played here for a week and was too busy to see it... I blinked, it was gone... pissed I missed it

[Irrylath]

dang. I work across from a theater where movies go to die. I'm watching for it to be there.

[Chris Slack]

I just got dome watching this for the fifth time making it my most watched film of 2007. Those of you who haven't seen it yet should check it out when you get the chance. I't been out on DVD in the UK for 6 months and will be coming out her in early January.