Sunshine

It's 50 years in the future. Eight astronauts on Icarus II are sent to restart the Sun as it begins to die. Icarus I was lost seven years ago for unknown reasons. Communications Officer Harvey (Troy Garity) finds a distress call from Icarus I. Psychiatrist Searle (Cliff Curtis) recommends to rendezvous despite engineer Mace (Chris Evans)'s objection for the extra bomb. Physicist Capa (Cillian Murphy) reluctantly agrees. Navigator Trey (Benedict Wong) miscalculates the new trajectory and Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) is killed. Trey goes crazy and is sedated. They board Icarus I leaving pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne) and botanist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) on Icarus II.

Director Danny Boyle uses the sun as a visual effect and it's amazing. The look of it is beautiful and industrial. The cast is intriguing. The movie is reminiscent of Alien and then it tries to follow it into slasher horror. That may have been a mistake. I'm more concerned about the confused nature of the last act. However I just love the look and feel of this world.

I was very lucky being able to get into a preview of this movie today in Vienna. I only knew very little about it in advance, so my expectations were quite neutral.

One word of advice: this movie is not for nitpickers or physicist. The plot outline (i.e. detonating a "stellar bomb" inside the sun) sounds ludicrous at first - but if you're able to ignore this and some other scientific nonsense, you get one great movie.

This one is all about the details and the crew's behavior. Danny Boyle once again proves his insight into the human psyche as he portraits how the crew-members handle the various arising problems, some of the decision-making is displayed frighteningly realistic compared to other movies in the genre. Cillian Murphy (brilliant as ever) and Chris Evans (hated him in Fantastic 4, but showed a great performance here) pair up very nicely during most many scenes.

The entire movie has a certain feel to it, the atmosphere is very tense and Boyle manages to keep the pace at quite a high level the entire time. Visual FX are at a high level as well.

Apparently Sunshine can't deny the influences from 2001 or Event Horizon, nevertheless it should be treated as an independent film.

A few deductions for some glitches and the scientific stuff, otherwise great entertainment!

I'm not going to drop any spoilers here. I will simply say that for the first hour this movie is superb, with an excellent cast, a beautiful orchestral score, and a solid script based on a wonderfully grandiose Big Sci-Fi Idea.

However, an hour in things begin to degrade, with a couple of poor plot decisions that could have been forgiven if they had just moved on. But an hour and 16 minutes in they double down on one particularly bad plot choice, and the film degenerates into horror movie cliches (yes, horror) which simply have no place here and ruined what would have been and unusually sublime and moving science fiction drama. I would love to know what in the world they were thinking, allowing the script to devolve and go in a direction that does not do justice to all of the other labor and excellent creative decisions that went into other aspects of the movie. What a shame.

A brilliant movie for so many reasons (my gf had an entirely different take on this but I loved the discussion it opened, which eventually brought me here). The kind of cast who each can shine in their own right, visuals that would still be considered top notch a decade and a half later, a goosebump inducing sound/music score and a concept that is thought provoking and shines a light to so many aspects of humanity. To some a slightly shaky 3rd act and while it does feel like someone else took the reigns for 20mins or so of its direction, it's brought together in a stunning finale. The overwhelming enormity of space vs humanity's drive to dictate our destiny and the spectrum of characters earth entrusts to save the planet play together in a beautiful, bleak way. If a film can have me still thinking about concepts, faith and morality after and the score genuinely have an emotional impact, as a director I could say I've done a job well done.

With a suitably international and diverse cast to simulate the equivalent crew onboard the Icarus II ("Icarus I" didn't fare so well), director Danny Boyle fledges a science fiction that gains momentum at its very first image – and does not halt until the end credits roll. To be perfectly frank, this is one of the most unbearably exciting films for whose entire duration I have ever squirmed in my seat for at the theatre.

On a mission to re-ignite the sun by detonating a bomb ("the size of Manhattan island", Cillian Murphy's physicist nods to American audiences and cause me to suffer horrible flashbacks to Armaggeddon's "it's the size of Texas" assessment) human lives are expendable and rationalized by rank. There are scientists, astronauts and various specialists on Icarus II who are all poised on the brink of sacrificing themselves for the greater good of mankind. Diverse in the sense that there are both men and women, and few characters are 'black or white' (morally, and physically), it does puzzle me that New Zealanders, Aussies and Irishmen have been arbitrarily converted into Americans. The crew is nevertheless highly impressive and professional, with a few minor exceptions for plot-propelling purposes, like when someone does something very stupid.

There is noticeably a tremendous visual sense throughout "Sunshine" with a screen that is awash with sparkling explosions and each frame saturated with bright colours and dimmed contrasts. There is no genre-transcending perhaps, and most probably its visuals are under the mercy of dating effects, but for now this is truly the crème de la crème of science fiction, take my word for it. Even the cinematography within the spaceship alleys and chambers is compelling and sweeps through Icarus II with great tracking shots. Amongst other films, Danny Boyle was inspired by Das Boot and certainly there are traces of the same claustrophobia underpinning the setting, but ultimately he opted for a more habitable environment to make it believable (like humanity would ship off its only hope with a crummy, crowded old vessel).

To justify the occasional bouts of sci-fi clichés, I'd like to firstly point out that it's not like "Sunshine" traffics in stereotypes or resorts to formulaic elements, and secondly that I believe certain clichés have evolved for a reason – they quite clearly stand the test of time. There are within science fiction some staples that are simply necessary to define its genre, such as the dutiful human sacrifices to up the drama, the internal mutinies to instill the uncertainty in the operation, the nightmarish conditions onboard the ship to suck you in, the technical jargon of velocities and shield angles that spits like bullet-fire to give the film a firm scientific footing, and finally the epic music to elevate suspense. "Sunshine" incorporates and melts together all of the aforementioned, but in militantly non-formulaic ways that only add to the experience. As a potent example, there isn't just pedestrian classical tunes recycled from 2001 and filtered through {insert rote Hollywood composer here}'s score – it is puffed full of beautiful piano crescendos that are almost incongruous to the sci-fi vibe, and the cumulative effect is wonderful.

"Sunshine" is sporadically blemished by minor faults, such as when Murphy's Law is being followed a bit too rigorously to up the excitement. Luckily, all of this is washed away or camouflaged when Boyle serves up his next goosebumps-inducing, gasp-eliciting spectacle – be it a horror twist or an impossibly epic action stunt. On the topic of the former, and clearly the chiasma at which "Alien" comparisons have been drawn, there is a magnificently creepy horror/mystery vibe interlacing the story in space. On top of this, Danny Boyle also dabbles in existentialism (a little too much if you ask me), making this into one of the most ambitious sci-fi turns ever made. In this way, maybe "Sunshine" is not primed to collect awards or even serve as meat for mainstream Hollywood, but I think it's safe to crown it the "Alien" of the 21st century.

8 out of 10