Sunshine
Directed by Danny Boyle.
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh,
Rose Byrne.
In the future when the sun has almost died, Earth has mined most of it's resources to send a team of scientists and engineers towards the sun in an enormous spacecraft carrying very precious cargo: A bomb large enough to hopefully rekindle the sun's fire, and prevent humanity from dying off in an eternal winter. However this is earth's second shuttle, and as the crew draws closer to the sun they encounter and investigate the ship from the first failed mission facing the possibility that maybe God wants humanity to die, and there is an extra person aboard the ship…
If you love science fiction, you must see this film. Firstly from a "scientific" standpoint, the ship's physics is virtually flawless. The people making this film definitely did their homework, the suits are realistic, the ship's layout is exactly as it would be on a ship that size, and the ship's design is a revamped version of the unaffordable genius designs made back in the 80's by the same scientists who brought us the nuclear weapon! (Like it or not they were incredibly smart!) Sigh… why did the cold war have to end!? Anyway… visually the film is a cut above any space film out there, it stands visually above other space films of this era, as 2001: A Space Odyssey stood visually above other films of it's era. Furthermore the film reminded me very much of Solaris, perhaps not necessarily on a sci-fi plot level, but it certainly created an atmosphere that took me elsewhere.
Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, and Australian actor Rose Byrne round out an A-grade cast with an A-grade script. They characters actually ACT like scientists for once! Having said that my non-scientist girlfriend had less praising comments towards the film… which does make me hazard the warning that if you're not a sci-fi addict you may (worst case scenario) even fall asleep!
Given the presence of director Danny Boyle (director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later) the film has also has some art-house shots that aren't for everyone, but all up the film is done brilliantly. This film never got the marketing it deserved but is a sci-fi work of art.
4/5 Stars
Michael Hill
