Movie Review: Sunshine

I saw Danny Boyle's Sunshine on Friday and for the most part I freakin' loved that film. My problem comes from most people's problem with the film, the third act. But we'll get to that in a minute.

The first two acts are done wonderfully. Sunshine is set about 50 years in our future when the sun is dying out. A second team of scientists are sent with a nuclear payload the size of Manhattan to deliver to the heart of the sun in order to restart it. Yes, the plot is a bit fantastical but so was 2001: A Space Odyssey. I point out a second team was sent but that's because a first team was lost and hadn't been heard from in seven years. Both teams are aptly named Icarus (I and II)but the names don't feel like they're hitting you over the head if they weren't so appropriate.

The team of the Icarus II consists of a nice mix of ethnicities, though there wasn't one black team member which makes me think either Boyle doesn't believe black people make good scientists or that if asked a black person would respond to the request of being shot into space for seven years with a "Fuck you, whitey." We are introduced to each character very quickly and this, much like the original Alien, and even, dare I say it, Predator, should be a study in how to get a character's personality across quickly. There's the Mauian guy who's obvisously becoming an addict to exposure to sunlight (as can be tracked through out the film with his ever peeling sunburnt face), the hot headed jock scientists played by the hot Chris Evans, who is quickly and mercifully removed from his god awful long haired "wig" which looks like it was taken directly from the set of his previous film London. There's the sensitive scientist played by Boyle favorite Cillian Murphy, and -- had this been any other film-- the obvious love interest played by Rose Byrne.

The captain of the ship, The Last Samurai's Hiroyuki Sanada, doesn't get enough screen time for me but Michelle Yeoh makes up for that with her botanist. Why does a space ship need a botanist? Because it needs oxygen, which I felt was, as far as I know, an original idea that a ship wouldn't just be recycling it's oxygen (though it does recycle the water). I know normal airplanes can recycle oxygen, however at most an airplane would fly for 16 hours, not seven years. It's a nice touch is what I'm saying.

Once we know all the characters we get into the heart of the second act: the discovery that the Icarus I is still intact and sending out a distress beacon. Here's where the debate begins for the characters and I was glad to see that there was a character who had enough common sense to know that going off mission would be a damn stupid idea. He spoke out about it very passionately, however he was overruled. At this point the viewer should know that it's not going to end well, and I found myself going, "no, no, no, no" though if they didn't go off mission then we wouldn't have a film.

So they go off mission and find the Icarus I, though it's not what they were expecting to find and it turns out going off the original mission was for naught. At this point I wanted to yell, "I told you so!" but I had to keep my blackness in check as I was in the Arclight theater and they don't take to kindly to talking (which is why I pay the extra three bucks to go in the first place).

I could go on about act two, however it would be full of spoilers. Just know that as expected when you do something you're not supposed to shit goes horribly, terribly, wrong. There are some really cool deaths though, one involving extreme heat and the other involving extreme cold. Don't even use your imagination, just go see it.

HOWEVER, be warned that the third act comes out of nowhere and is dependent on very smart people doing very stupid things, like standing around gawking when they should be subduing an enemy with a baseball bat to the head. Did I just say that out loud? Probably.

Despite the third act Sunshine has got to be one of the better, if not best, Sci-Fi films I've seen in years. It's an amalgam of a few other Science Fiction pieces, most notably echoing Event Horizon, which I happen to like. It's well worth seeing in theaters, as the visuals are some of the most stunning I've seen and I don't know how they'll translate onto the small screen (unless you're one of those HD people) also of note is the awesome soundtrack, which had me running across the street to Amoeba Records to buy only to find it's not out yet. That's significant 'cause I haven't bought a new CD in years.

Basically what I'm saying is go see it, I highly recommend it.