Sunshine

I went to this movie knowing only that it had been made by Danny Boyle, director of "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later". Expecting nothing, except something good, what I got was a mediocre sci-fi film, complete with talking computers, (yup) space walks-of death, and long loviing shots of men playing with machines.

It's the future, and the sun is fading out (One shot shows snow on the ground in Sidney Aus.) A crack team of scientists is sent on a mission to reignite the sun's core by detonating a nuclear bomb the size of Manhatten inside of it. No, that wouldn't work, in case you were wondering, and if you were wondering, you should have paid more attention in high school. Space suits, as well as the space ship itself (Icarus II) are covered in gold to deflect the sun's light and radiation. The crew never seem to tire of staring at the sun through an ultra-thick window and industrial-strength sunglasses.

The crew receives a distress signal from the Icarus I, a ship sent out seven years earlier on the exact same mission (yup.) Debate ensues over whether or not to change course in order to rescue any survivors of the Icarus I and/or loot the corpses. Out of the eight people on board, the captain leaves the decision solely in the hands of the physisist, because he's the physisist and he knows how the bomb will work, and because he's Cillian Murphy and he has those fierce sunken eyes of his. There are a thousand different reasons why the decision was left in the hands of the physisist, the question is why the ship needed a captain. Murphy decides to rendezvous with Icarus I in order to use its nuke as a spare. (No, not even two really big nuclear bombs would be enough to reignite the sun.)

Trouble ensues when the ship's techman fails to set proper coordinates for the ship's heat shield. Murphy and tthe captain go out to repair the damage, captain fails to get out of the sun's way in time, dies religiously. Massive sunlight causes a fire in the ship's "oxygen garden" ( Plants converting CO2 to oxygen, making the long journey survivable.) Without oxygen, the journey becomes a one-way trip, though one has to figure that the crew always knew they wern't coming back from flying into the middle of the sun and nuking it.

Oh, and the captain of the Icarus I is still alive, he gets on the Icarus II and starts killing people. Ghost frames of Icarus I crew members pop up on the film, which would be spooky if it wern't so obvious. I remeber seeing "Event Horizon" when I was fifteen and hearing my friends talk about how "freaky" it was before they passed the bong. "Event Horizon" is an absolute piece of trash, of course, and it's hard to imagine what sort of moron would like it well enough to rip it off; oh wait. it was Danny Boyle.

They reach the sun. They set off the bomb save the day. Murphy faces death and transcends it, (yup), the end.

It's a really shitty story, but "Sunshine" is almost redeemed by the images. The multiple close-ups of the sun close-up never stop being cool, nor does the sight of a man freezing to death instantaniously and then shattering his arm to pieces against an antenna. As much as I want like to be ashamed of paying to see "Sunshine" in theatres, in truth I can only say that I merely regret it.