Sunshine

• Genre: Apocalyptic
• Release Year: 2007
• Director: Danny Boyle
• Writer: Alex Garland
• Running Time: 107 min
• Rating: R
• Reviewed by: CyberPunkFuture on Mon 28 Jan 08

Official Blurb:
With Earth's life source -- the sun -- dying out 50 years in the future, it seems the planet's days may be numbered in this sci-fi thriller starring Cillian Murphy and Michelle Yeoh. Humanity's only hope lies with a crew of astronauts transporting a device that will revitalize the sun. But an accident, a deadly error and a distress signal from a vessel that vanished years ago leave the cosmonauts fighting for survival ... and for their sanity.

Review:
OK, well, this is really more of a sci-fi thriller than an apocalyptic film, but the underlying premise of the movie and the motivation for the characters is apocalyptic, in that the sun is dying and that means no more life.

We're thrown in media res into the plot, following a group of astronauts and scientists aboard a massive spacecraft designed to deliver a bomb that will somehow explode and jump start the sun. Mmm hmm. It gets better, just follow along. This is the second craft, as the first one went missing in the Dead Zone, the area within which the solar wind becomes so strong that communication back to Earth becomes impossible. And that right there is about the most plausible thing about this movie, so from here on out just suspend any sense of reality, physics, logic, whatever you might have. Enjoy it for the eye candy because it's got that in spades.

So they've been traveling for some years now and are near Mercury's orbit, when they pick up a signal from the 'lost' first ship. Argument ensues as to whether continue on with the mission (since they have just enough resources to complete the original mission, naturally), or to investigate the first ship. They decide to investigate the first ship because it will double their chances of success by having two bombs. Apparently, the bomb is just theoretical and not guaranteed to work. So, really instead of doubling their chances, they now have two theoretical might-not-work bombs, but whatever.

Mishaps and accidents ensue that slowly reduce the crew as they travel on. Like when they switch trajectory to rendezvous with the first ship, they forget to realign the shields. Because that's all manually done apparently. We have the technology to travel to the sun and blow it up, but the computer with her sexy female voice isn't used to align shields. And the shields....apparently, I could travel to the Sun so long as I floated behind a gigantic mirror.

Eventually they reach the lost first ship and find the crew dead, having committed suicide by frying themselves on the sun's energy because they thought God had spoken to them and commanded them to stop. More accidents occur, less crew survive. Attempting not to spoil to much, I'll just say that back on the second ship a mysterious crew member appears, and proceeds to wreak more havoc. More action, more action, less crew, etc. Then they finally launch the bomb into the sun and is explodes and works it's fairy magic and then everything is better back on Earth, except that Australia is covered with snow, which I dunno, but maybe that's a good thing?

What I liked:
- Special FX. It's an eye candy film. Beautiful solar images, fancy spaceship stuffs...

What I didn't like:
- I know, I know...you don't watch science-fiction (keyword fiction) movies for elements of realism. But in my opinion, the science part of it means there should at least be some grain of realism somewhere in it. They are flying a bomb into the sun. Not near it, into it. And then then will explode somehow triggering the sun to keep burning. Nevermind the entire field of astrophysics....
- It started off decent, but then it just became cliche after cliche
- *potential spoiler*
Apparently, living alone on a spaceship in orbit around the sun for 7 years makes you blurry. And if I had to pick one single thing about the movie to irritate me it was that. Because the last 20 mins of the movie or so looked like they were filmed by a six year old who stole daddy's camera and was screwing with the focus.

Rating:

• Genre Feel: 3
• Acting: 2
• Effects: 5
  
• Production Quality:: 3

Final Scoring:

Personal Recommendation: Eyecandy

Availablity:
  Netflix     Amazon  

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