Sunshine

I'm sure Rick is going to do a full bore review of Danny Boyle's (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) new film Sunshine, but since I saw it with him, I figured I'd jot down some thoughts about the movie.

Sunshine starts out as pure hard science fiction--a diverse group of astronauts on a mission to deliver a bomb to reignite our dying sun. The effects and production design are wonderful throughout--all red, green, and gold; I think the film is worth seeing just for this. In fact, I might recommend trying to see it in digital projection (heresy!) like at the Highland 10.

As I said, Sunshine starts out as hard sf. It stays that way through the first two-thirds of the picture. Then it veers madly into cheapjack horror and freshman college dorm metaphysics for the final third. The ship diverts to rendezvous with its failed predecessor. As they are docked, the first captain---somehow not only still alive but transformed into a living god---slips onto their ship and goes a little knife happy, all while spouting stuff about Man's place in the universe.

This, by the way, is the point in the movie at which Rick started muttering to himself, twitching, and rocking back and forth in his seat. I guess you have to respect a man who is physically distressed by bad (or just unfortunate) film making. It raised some deep questions for me to ponder in the dark. Like, shouldn't there be tasers hidden underneath movie theater seats? Or if someone gets you into a movie for free, is it bad form to call an usher and have them tossed out?

Back to the picture. What annoyed me most about the ending was the statement it made that a simple film about the mission would not have been enough. Saving the sun struck me as a sufficient good old school sf type of quest. I was compelled by whether they would succeed before the film swerved. I think this is an sf film thing. In mysteries, for example, filmmakers seem to have enough trust in the basic sturdiness of the genre to not cop out and start telling a different type of story towards the end.

Another problem (and it might be me more than the movie) is that I just didn't buy
Cillian Murphy as the hero physicist. As we drove home, we discussed who'd made a less believable scientist and the only one we could come up with was Denise Richards' turn as Dr. Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough. I wonder if this is a generational thing--maybe I feel the same way about actors like Murphy that others felt about Redford and Newman as they supplanted John Wayne and Gary Cooper. All I know is that my movie physicists wear ties and have crewcuts, not pouty lips, stringy hair and deep blue soulful eyes. . . .

Anyway, long winded, but even with all of its flaws, I'd recommend Sunshine. It's 2/3ds of a real sf movie, which is closer than most other films get. Besides, I told a guy at work Transformers wasn't all that bad, so I can't pan this with a straight face.