Sunshine

Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Michelle Yeoh

Dir. Danny Boyle
Scr. Alex Garland

I nearly didn’t write this review because, three days after seeing the film, I was still a bit peeved. I wanted this film to be so much better than it was – I think it had so much potential. But, apart from the visual spectacle, the plot ended up weak and clichéd and the last third was just rubbish.

The premise: 50 years into the future, the Sun begins to die, and Earth is dying as a result (as you’d expect – brrrrrr!). A team of astronauts are sent to revive the Sun - but the mission fails. Seven years later, a new team are sent to finish the mission as they are Earth's last hope. They have to detonate a massive bomb, able to destroy the strange matter that is messing with the Sun, and restore the Sun's natural state. Let’s leave aside the fact that this is complete scientific rubbish (as is pretty much every film of this kind – The Core, Armageddon, Deep Impact and so on and so forth). According to one expert, once the ship gets nearer to the sun, the gravity would stop them being able to walk and eventually crush them. So, yeah, let’s not even go there.

The reason I had high expectations for this film was largely due to the impact Danny Boyle had had on the zombie genre with 28 Days Later and how frightening and thrilling that movie was. And I thought that maybe he could change the way we were served up the typical “let’s stop the earth from dying by doing some cool stuff in space” film. And, in some respects, he did. Visually, Sunshine is stunning. There is so much potential when dealing with an entity so amazing – the film takes full advantage of the sheer size and brightness and heat of the Sun, and sometimes assaults the audience’s retinas to get the point across. Which is exactly the experience I want to have when faced with a film about a huge ball of fire and gases. There are many visual treats in this film, not just the Sun: the lush oxygen gardens, the funky spacesuits, small and fun advances in technology you’d hope for in a movie set nearly 60 years in the future. There’s a lot to feast on here.

However, the same can’t be said for a plot that has much promise but completely loses it way nearly 40 minutes from the end, leaving the audience yawning and waiting for the predictable ending. Without giving too much away, there’s an intruder on the ship. And he’s not nice or sane. He’s certainly an unwelcome addition to a film that was going places and then, in the end, went exactly where almost every other movie of this genre goes – Predictable Street in Lamesville.

The acting is solid, with especially good turns from Cliff Curtis (the on-board psychologist, meant to keep the crew sane and who ends up a little crazy himself) and Cillian Murphy (the scientist who came up with the “Sun bomb” plan). The cast is convincing as a tight but tense unit of experts, committed to playing their important part in this world-saving mission.

So, a big “screw you” to Alex Garland, whose script ultimately ruins what had the potential to be a really great film. By all means, see Sunshine. Just don’t expect it to change the sci-fi genre … which, I have to admit, was a pretty big expectation to have in the first place.

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Cassie: Only dream I ever have... is the surface of the sun... everytime I shut my eyes... it's always the same.