British Director Danny Boyle, takes us on a journey with SUNSHINE as eight specialist astronauts go on a mission, Icarus 2, to save planet Earth by implanting a bomb to reignite a dying sun.
An international cast including ROSE BYRNE's pilot, CLIFF CURTIS’s psychologist, CILLIAN MURPHY’s physicist, CHRIS EVANS's engineer,
MICHELE YEOH’s biologist lurch from one disaster to another as they strive to achieve their mission and discover what went wrong with Icarus 1.
This is heart-pumping material from the start as the team gear up to meet each emergency, some caused by the frailty of machinery, some by the frailty of humans.
And while the film aims at being a synergy of futurism and spirituality it’s basically just another space movie, but a very good one.
The performances are tops, the soundtrack enormous, characterisations a bit limited but aren’t they always. With all those bad things happening who’s got time to emote? But visually, kinetically, SUNSHINE is a major achievement.
It posits the sun as a god which you either embrace or fear. With a screenplay by Alex Garland, Danny Boyle goes where few fear to tread and succeeds to an extent.
Further comments
MARGARET: David?
DAVID: Yes, quite a large extent, really. I mean, there were so many elements from other more famous sci-fi films in this.
I mean, there's the talking computer from 2001 and of course the great mission from 2001. There's the garden from SILENT RUNNING on board the spaceship.
There's even, and the film is very self-knowledgeable about this, the monster from ALIEN - not anything like the monster in ALIEN, of course, but nevertheless, you know, there is something very nasty there.
So there's all kinds of elements that are familiar from other films, but they've been juggled together in this quite satisfactorily, I think.
MARGARET: I think they've juggled the elements actually quite interestingly.
DAVID: Yes, I think they have, yes.
MARGARET: With a human base, which is what interests me, rather than sort of like creatures.
DAVID: Yes. I mean, it looks great, but certainly, yes, as you say - you see, I think the human characters are quite interesting and the cast is really quite good. I think they are all quite solid.
The film is worth seeing for a number of reason but, if nothing else, the very last shot of the film just takes your breath away. It's a wonderful, wonderful ending.
MARGARET: Really, it is "edge of the seat" stuff. It grabs you visually and auditorily, and doesn't let you go.
Plot
In the not-too-distant future, the sun is about to smoke out. In a bid to stop the obliteration of humanity a crew is sent to reignite the dying star with a mammoth nuclear bomb. When their mission fails, a new team is despatched to finish what their predecessors couldn’t. But they find that flying to the least hospitable place in the galaxy and staying sane and alive is no simple matter.
Empire Review
Danny Boyle makes no secret of his reverence for Ridley Scott’s Alien, and he’s clearly stuck close to his master’s teachings for his venture into the claustrophobia of oblivion. But he has employed a monster not really designed for hiding in cupboards or, indeed, the dark: The Sun. Using the provider of all life as our ultimate enemy – what happens when it sputters out? – is a fantastically clever idea. In fact it’s one so clever that Boyle ultimately stumbles in trying to deliver a truly satisfactory conclusion to his set up. But that’s not to say he doesn’t have a terrific time getting there.
Sunshine starts with rocket-like velocity. There’s no time for pre-take off preamble or significant character work; a slight shame since the brief running time could have allowed it without seeming bloated. There are people to be slain and minds to be boggled and not a great deal of time in which to do it. After a brilliant “look at me, mum†opening shot that leaves the rest of the film a great deal to live up to, Boyle thrusts his audience immediately among the crew of the Icarus II, a fleet of recognisable, but not stratospherically famous, faces, any of whom could buy the farm once things start going awry.
Be warned: on entering the cinema do not stop at the refreshment stand, nor consume any volume of liquid that cannot be held in a thimble or very small bladder. The first hour provides absolutely zero let-up and only occasional opportunities to exhale. If someone’s not dying, they’re running, crying or just freaking out. Things start going swiftly wrong as soon as the crew becomes aware that the ship they were sent to replace hasn’t disappeared at all and is in actuality sitting basking in the rays of the sun. And with little care for the fact that this type of heroism never ends well in sci-fi movies, they set off to rescue it. The ensuing madness makes two things very obvious: a) Danny Boyle is world class in white knuckle cinema, and b) there is no such thing as a new idea in sci-fi.
Alex Garland, whose 28 Days Later... script made zombies seem like an almost brand new idea, has written a script high on drama, but also high on sci-fi archetype. There’s the noble captain, obsessed with the lost ship that went before; a cowardly second in command; a bit where the airlock goes wrong; lots of spinny flashing lights and a computer that sounds like a patient but unhelpful Teach Yourself French tape. None of these should spoil anyone’s enjoyment of the film, but it does beg the question of whether the genre of People Go Mad In Space has reached creative critical mass.
Of course, such considerations will only be made after the credits roll, because Boyle’s far too busy ringing you dry of perspiration and sensibility before that. His love of Alien shines through, because he’s mastered the art of getting every last drop of spooky out of creaky dark tunnels and turning the simple act of breathing into something to be watched through the fingers. And the film is breathtaking to look at.
Boyle will be unpopular with future action directors. He’s taken just $40 million to produce a film of near faultless visual gloss and shimmery sophistication, with production values. It’s impossible to see where reality ends and computer begins and, as it was our understanding that fire was one of the last great CG hurdles, we can consider that one leapt.
Speaking of flames, Sunshine should be conclusive proof that Chris Evans, aka Fantastic Four’s Human Torch, is on his way to stratospheric action fame. Murphy, doing his heroically wimpy thing with unblinking urgency, may be as close as the film has to a lead, but it’s Evans who emerges as its star.
As the tension racks up and the body count mounts, it seems we could be on the way to genre classic. But then the finale is fumbled. To tell you how would ruin the film, but the ending makes no particular sense and is more a quiet fizzle rather than a big bang.
Verdict
Aside from a last minute blip this is knuckle-gnawingly tense, gloriously handsome action-horror.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
Well unfortunately here in the US it was pulled from it's original March release date and doesn't even have a release date now. It's TBA.
Glad to hear it's being well received though. Some of the reviews I had read over here (only a couple so far) had said the second half needed a total rewrite and that it fell apart, etc. I thought the previews looked fantastic, and let's face it, Boyle is no slouch so far.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
Well, I saw it yesterday and thought it was great.
We did have one mishap near the end of the movie though where the fire alarm in the theater went off and we had to evacuate for about 10 minutes, which kind of sucked.
At first I thought, "this movie has the best effects ever" because it seemed like the alarm could have been on the ship and there were flashing lights but then a guy came and ran us out. I would have been super pissed if I didn't get to see how this ended though.
Overall, very good, even the wife really liked it and she's a big sci-fi fan so if can hold up for her then it did something right. I hope it did well this weekend and gets expanded some more. Some pretty cool deaths too.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
isn't there a ray bradbury short story that's kinda similar to this?
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:09 pm Posts: 10839 Location: metro west, mass Gender: Male
I saw this last weekend.
I think this movie would be a great showcase of your HD setup, assuming you have a a HD copy of the movie. The special effects were absolutely mindblowing.
_________________ "There are two ways to enslave and conquer a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt." -John Adams
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:26 pm Posts: 14525 Location: Buffalo
I saw this at the Arclight in Hollywood on Saturday night, knowing next to nothing about it. I'd heard the title before, but that's about it. So, I was pleasantly surprised and shocked at the first third or so of the movie. I was like, "how the eff did I not hear anything more about this?!"
Then, things started to turn for the worse. This is essentially Event Horizon II. Instead of Uranus and black holes, it's the Sun and a bomb. I was really disappointed with the decisions made with the latter half of the movie. There's a joke made about aliens picking off the crew one-by-one, an apparent wink at audiences accustomed to the now-conventional plots of such movies. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Sunshine turns into! WTF! Substitute Sam Neill for Captain Sunburn and it's Event Horizon all over again. What started out as an A movie turned into a C by the end.
Definitely worth seeing for the outstanding fx.
_________________ If animal trapped call 410-844-6286, then hit option 1123 6536 5321, then dial 4 8 15 16 23 42
I saw this at the Arclight in Hollywood on Saturday night, knowing next to nothing about it. I'd heard the title before, but that's about it. So, I was pleasantly surprised and shocked at the first third or so of the movie. I was like, "how the eff did I not hear anything more about this?!"
Then, things started to turn for the worse. This is essentially Event Horizon II. Instead of Uranus and black holes, it's the Sun and a bomb. I was really disappointed with the decisions made with the latter half of the movie. There's a joke made about aliens picking off the crew one-by-one, an apparent wink at audiences accustomed to the now-conventional plots of such movies. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Sunshine turns into! WTF! Substitute Sam Neill for Captain Sunburn and it's Event Horizon all over again. What started out as an A movie turned into a C by the end.
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