Sunshine

Red Eye Rundown
Looks a million bucks, but doesn't quite reach the stars.
Why not try Battlestar Galactica (mini series), Armageddon
 
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Reviewed by Jo Pettitt
Danny Boyle, director of '28 days later' and ' Trainspotting' turns his hand to a science fiction role well with 'Sunshine' however ultimately I was disappointed with this film as a whole.

Good points first: I doubt very much whether we will see another film this year that gets it's CGI so right. Sunshine is defnitely a film to see at the cinema with all the jazz of the big screen and surround sound. Boyle has brilliantly balanced script, dialogue and directorial skill with sexy-looking eye candy. The lighting FX, the shots of the Sun itself, and the colours that he produces through the use of various post-production filters are simply first class. He twins this with a top notch score that make the first 45 minutes of the film really engaging. The slightly spacey digital music played over various sweeping shots of Icarus II and her massive sunshield do enormous credit to Boyle's film-making ablility especially considering the relatively small budget available to him.

Boyle also uses obscure camera angles and lots of tight facial shots to capture a range of different emotions throughout the picture. As the crew approaches the stranded Icarus I he does a great job of building suspense, anxiety and tension with his chosen camera positions and angles. To this end, I also applaud writer Alex Garland. He obviously worked hard to bring a plot to the big screen that wouldn't be out of place Star Trek and establish plausibility, reaching a happy medium between hardcore sci-fi fans and the happy-go-lucky movie-goer. The script explores the effect of prolonged isolation on the various members of the crew well, and the performances of the actors succeed illustrating how the human psyche might deal wit the crisis with which the men and women of the Icarus are confronted. There were no stand-out performances in my opinion - Chris Evans was good considering how bad he was in The Fantastic Four, and I felt Cillian Murphy could have given a little more depth to his character. It is unfortunate that Cliff Curtis' character, Searle, was killed off so soon, as for me he was the most interesting member of the crew. I found both the biologist, Michelle Yeoh and communications officer Troy Garity completely uninspiring. In a film with such a small cast (9 in total) I believe that each performance must bring something to the story, otherwise they become an empty fluffy character and as a viewer I become disinterested with them.

However, the real problem with Sunshine comes in the third act,  when the entire film shifts from very pretty looking sci-fi with nicely developing plot and good degree of underlying suspense to a thriller/horror-fest complete with monstrous-looking bad guy. One minute you are exploring the psychology of Searle's addiction to the viewing deck, and the next there's a maniac slashing people with knives. And what is worse, Boyle never really gets round to telling you WHY the mad man wants to kill everyone and stop Icarus II from achieving what Icarus I tried to do 7 years before. The pace of the film jerks violently away from the first 45 minutes, which in hindsight feels like a quaint preamble, and here we are present with Pinbacker trying to ensure the extinction of the human race, and as the viewer the only justification you get is some pretty flat dialogue about how it is not the place of man to intervene with the work of God (his God by the way, not ours, whatever that means). Sunshine runs short at 100 minutes, and it feels as though Boyle wraps the entire thing up far too quickly. The scene where Mace (Evans) dies is weak, which makes no sense considering the strength and dominance of his character throughout the film. Cassie (Rose Byrne) meanwhile flees the murderous Pinbacker and then appears to sit around in the enormous payload room twiddling her fingers until Kapa (Murphy) shows up to attempt to manually divert the bomb into the Sun. After he arrives, she cries a bit and really does nothing else of merit. Remember what I was saying earlier about empty fluff?

In conclusion, I don't want this review to appear too negative. There were some really redeeming features which made Sunshine a good flick, and I will probably go out and buy the DVD. However, I will never class it is a favourite. Forty five minutes into Sunshine I was really thinking I could be on to film of the year here, and I am gutted that it didn't turn out that way.
 
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Genre Information
 
Production Information
Produced in: UK
Language: English
 
Release Information
Released: 2007

UK cinema: 06/04/2007
US cinema: 27/07/2007

UK DVD: 27/08/2007
US DVD: 08/01/2007
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